You can do nice hack when querying contentResolver, use:

String selection = Models.SOMETHING + "=" + something + ") GROUP BY (" + Models.TYPE;

Since no one came to answer I'm just going to tell how I solved this. Basically I would create custom URI for each case and pass the criteria in selection parameter. Then inside ContentProvider#query I would identify the case and construct raw query based on table name and selection parameter.

Here's quick example:

switch (URI_MATCHER.match(uri)) {
    case TYPES:
        table = TYPES_TABLE;
        break;
    case TYPES_DISTINCT:
        return db.rawQuery("SELECT DISTINCT type FROM types", null);
    default:
        throw new IllegalArgumentException("Unknown URI " + uri);
    }
    return db.query(table, null, selection, selectionArgs, null, null, null);

In your overridden ContentProvider query method have a specific URI mapping to using distinct.

Then use SQLiteQueryBuilder and call the setDistinct(boolean) method.

@Override
public Cursor query(Uri uri, String[] projection, String selection,
        String[] selectionArgs, String sortOrder)
{
    SQLiteQueryBuilder qb = new SQLiteQueryBuilder();

    boolean useDistinct = false;

    switch (sUriMatcher.match(uri))
    {
    case YOUR_URI_DISTINCT:
        useDistinct = true;
    case YOUR_URI:
        qb.setTables(YOUR_TABLE_NAME);
        qb.setProjectionMap(sYourProjectionMap);
        break;

    default:
        throw new IllegalArgumentException("Unknown URI " + uri);
    }

    // If no sort order is specified use the default
    String orderBy;
    if (TextUtils.isEmpty(sortOrder))
    {
        orderBy = DEFAULT_SORT_ORDER;
    }
    else
    {
        orderBy = sortOrder;
    }
    // Get the database and run the query
    SQLiteDatabase db = mDBHelper.getReadableDatabase();
            // THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART!
    qb.setDistinct(useDistinct);
    Cursor c = qb.query(db, projection, selection, selectionArgs, null, null, orderBy);

    if (c != null)
    {
        // Tell the cursor what uri to watch, so it knows when its source data changes
        c.setNotificationUri(getContext().getContentResolver(), uri);
    }

    return c;
}

When you have multiple columns in your projection you should do like this:

    val uri = MediaStore.Images.Media.EXTERNAL_CONTENT_URI
    val projection = arrayOf(
        "DISTINCT " + MediaStore.Images.Media.BUCKET_ID,
        MediaStore.Images.Media.BUCKET_DISPLAY_NAME,
        MediaStore.Images.Media.BUCKET_ID,
        MediaStore.MediaColumns.DATA
    )
    val groupBySelection = " 1) GROUP BY (${MediaStore.Images.Media.BUCKET_ID}"
    contentResolver.query(
        uri,
        projection,
        null,
        groupBySelection,
        null,
        null
    )

groupBySelection with closing bracket and number "1" inside is a tiny hack, but it works absolutely fine

I created a utility method for using group by and distinct.

Usage

Here is an example of selecting unseen thread_id with the last message date from the MMS database.

query(contentResolver= contentResolver,
        select = arrayOf(Mms.THREAD_ID, "max(${Mms.DATE}) as date"),
        from = Mms.CONTENT_URI,
        where = "${Mms.SEEN} = 0",
        groupBy = "1",
        orderBy = "2 desc"
        ).use {
    while (it?.moveToNext() == true){
        val threadId = it.getInt(0)
        val date = it.getLong(1)
    }
}

Source

fun query(
        contentResolver: ContentResolver,
        from: Uri,
        select: Array<String>,
        where: String? = null,
        groupBy: Array<out String>? = null,
        distinct: Boolean = false,
        selectionArgs: Array<out String>? = null,
        orderBy: String? = null,
): Cursor? {
    val tmpSelect = select[0]
    val localWhere =
            if (groupBy == null) where
            else "${where ?: "1"}) group by (${groupBy.joinToString()}"
    if (distinct) {
        select[0] = "distinct $tmpSelect"
    }
    val query = contentResolver.query(from, select, localWhere, selectionArgs, orderBy)
    select[0] = tmpSelect
    return query
}