Automatically grant ACTION_MANAGE_OVERLAY_PERMISSION via setPermissionGrantState or similar

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I'm trying to grant some runtime permissions to my app automatically, these include ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION, READ_PHONE_STATE as well as ACTION_MANAGE_OVERLAY_PERMISSION. Do note that this requires at least Device Administrator access rights, which I have.

While the first two work flawlessly via 

  dpm.setPermissionGrantState(componentName, "com.my.app", Manifest.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE, DevicePolicyManager.PERMISSION_GRANT_STATE_GRANTED);
  dpm.setPermissionGrantState(componentName, "com.my.app", Manifest.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION, DevicePolicyManager.PERMISSION_GRANT_STATE_GRANTED);

ACTION_MANAGE_OVERLAY_PERMISSION does not work at all. I believe this might be due to the fact that it's not part of Manifest.permission but instead android.settings.action.MANAGE_OVERLAY_PERMISSION. However it still is a permission that I want to be granted automatically.

Edit: While it seems that this permission is granted automatically to any app that requests it, this only is the case for apps distributed via the playstore. Unfortunately my App is NOT distributed that way.

device-policy-manager android-permissions android
3 Answers

It is a new behaviour introduced in Marshmallow 6.0.1.

Every app that requests the SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW permission and that is installed through the Play Store (version 6.0.5 or higher is required), will have granted the permission automatically.

If instead the app is sideloaded, the permission is not automatically granted. You can try to download and install the Evernote APK from apkmirror.com. As you can see you need to manually grant the permission in Settings -> Apps -> Draw over other apps.

These are the commits [1] [2] that allow the Play Store to give the automatic grant of the SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW permission.

user_63767960
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