Behavior changes: all apps

The Android 17 platform includes behavior changes that might affect your app. The following behavior changes apply to all apps when they run on Android 17, regardless of targetSdkVersion. You should test your app and then modify it as needed to support these changes, where applicable.

Make sure to also review the list of behavior changes that only affect apps targeting Android 17.

Note: This page lists some of the more important changes. For more detailed information, see the Android 17 release notes.

Core functionality

Android 17 (API level 37) includes the following changes that modify or expand various core capabilities of the Android system.

App memory limits

Android 17 introduces app memory limits based on the device's total RAM to create a more stable and deterministic environment for your applications and Android users. In Android 17, limits are set conservatively to establish system baselines, targeting extreme memory leaks and other outliers before they trigger system-wide instability resulting in UI stuttering, higher battery drain, and apps being killed. While we anticipate minimal impact on the vast majority of app sessions, we recommend the following memory best practices, including establishing a baseline for memory.

Note: Memory limits are only imposed on a subset of Android devices.

You can determine if your app session was impacted by calling getDescription in ApplicationExitInfo; if your app was affected, the exit reason will be REASON_OTHER and the description will contain the string "MemoryLimiter:AnonSwap" along with other information. You can also use trigger-based profiling with TRIGGER_TYPE_ANOMALY to get heap dumps that are collected when the memory limit is hit.

The Manage your app's memory documentation gives information to help you diagnose your app's memory issues and optimize its resource consumption.

Test your app's behavior under the memory constraints

You can use Android Debug Bridge (adb) to adjust or disable the memory limits on any device that imposes them. The shell command am provides three subcommands to adjust the memory limits. (These commands have no effect on a device which does not impose memory limits.)

• am memory-limiter ignore <uid>|none|all
• am memory-limiter manual <pid> <limit>|max|none
• am memory-limiter status

ignore

Instructs the memory limiter to ignore some or all processes. Passing a UID instructs the memory limiter to ignore all processes associated with that UID. You can also pass all (ignore all processes) or none (do not ignore any processes). Passing none overrides any previous calls to am memory-limiter ignore.

If you instruct the memory limiter to ignore a process, you can still apply a manual memory limit to the process by calling am memory-limiter manual.

manual

Instructs the system to impose a memory constraint on the process with the specified PID. The memory constraint is specified as an integer number of MB; for example, passing 30 specifies that the process is limited to 30 MB of memory. Passing max removes all memory limits on that process. Passing none removes any manual limits set on the process, restoring the system's default limit (if any).

status

Reports the current status of the memory limiter. The status includes the memory limits imposed on visible and non-visible processes.

Privacy

Android 17 includes the following changes to improve user privacy.

SMS OTP protection

Beginning with Android 17, Android is expanding its protection for SMS messages containing one-time passwords (OTP).

In previous versions of Android, this protection was primarily focused on the SMS Retriever format. Delivery of messages containing an SMS retriever hash was delayed for most apps for three hours. However, certain certain apps (like the default SMS handler) were exempt from the delay, and the app that owned the hash was also exempted.

Beginning with Android 17, the protection is also applied to WebOTP format messages. If an app has permission to read SMS messages but is not the intended recipient of a WebOTP message (as determined by domain verification), the message is not accessible to the app until three hours after the message's receipt. This change is intended to improve user security by ensuring that only apps associated with the domain mentioned in the message can programmatically read the verification code.

During this three hour delay, the SMS_RECEIVED_ACTION broadcast is withheld and SMS provider database queries are filtered. The SMS message is available to these apps after the delay. This change applies to all apps, regardless of their target API level.

Certain apps such as the default SMS assistant app, connected device companion apps, etc., are exempted from this delay. All apps that rely on reading SMS messages for OTP extraction should transition to using SMS Retriever or SMS User Consent APIs to ensure continued functionality.

Note: If your app targets Android 17 (API level 37) or higher, this protection is also extended to standard SMS messages. For more information, see OTP protection for standard SMS messages in the Behavior changes: Apps targeting Android 17 documentation.

Security

Android 17 includes the following improvements to device and app security.

usesClearTraffic deprecation plan

In a future release, we plan to deprecate the usesCleartextTraffic element. Apps that need to make unencrypted (HTTP) connections should migrate to using a network security configuration file, which lets you specify which domains your app needs to make cleartext connections to.

Be aware that network security configuration files are only supported on API levels 24 and higher. If your app has a minimum API level lower than 24, you should do both of the following:

• Set the usesCleartextTraffic attribute to true
• Use a network configuration file

If your app's minimum API level is 24 or higher, you can use a network configuration file and you don't need to set usesCleartextTraffic.

Restrict implicit URI grants

Currently, if an app launches an intent with a URI that has the action ACTION_SEND, ACTION_SEND_MULTIPLE, or ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE, the system automatically grants the read and write URI permissions to the target app. Starting in Android 18, the system will no longer automatically grant these permissions. For this reason, we recommend that apps explicitly grant the relevant URI permissions instead of relying on the system to grant them.

To detect the usage of these intents in your app, use StrictMode with detectImplicitUriPermissionGrant() to trigger a violation:

Kotlin

val policy = StrictMode.VmPolicy.Builder()
    .detectImplicitUriPermissionGrant()
    .penaltyLog()
    .build()
StrictMode.setVmPolicy(policy)

Java

StrictMode.VmPolicy policy = new StrictMode.VmPolicy.Builder()
    .detectImplicitUriPermissionGrant()
    .penaltyLog()
    .build();
StrictMode.setVmPolicy(policy);

Alternatively, you can monitor for logged exceptions containing the message Please set the grant explicitly in the app that appears when system implicitly sets the grant. You can monitor for these logs using the following adb command:

adb logcat | grep "Please set the grant explicitly in the app"

To explicitly grant the necessary permissions, add the FLAG_GRANT_READ_URI_PERMISSION flag to ACTION_SEND and ACTION_SEND_MULTIPLE intents:

Kotlin

intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_GRANT_READ_URI_PERMISSION)

Java

intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_GRANT_READ_URI_PERMISSION);

Include both FLAG_GRANT_READ_URI_PERMISSION and FLAG_GRANT_WRITE_URI_PERMISSION flags for ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE intents:

Kotlin

intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_GRANT_READ_URI_PERMISSION or Intent.FLAG_GRANT_WRITE_URI_PERMISSION)

Java

intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_GRANT_READ_URI_PERMISSION | Intent.FLAG_GRANT_WRITE_URI_PERMISSION);

Per-app keystore limits

Apps should avoid creating excessive numbers of keys in Android Keystore, because it is a shared resource for all apps on the device. Beginning with Android 17, the system enforces a limit on the number of keys an app can own. The limit is 50,000 keys for non-system apps targeting Android 17 (API level 37) or higher, and 200,000 keys for all other apps. System apps have a limit of 200,000 keys, regardless of which API level they target.

If an app attempts to create keys beyond the limit, the creation fails with a KeyStoreException. The exception's message string contains information about the key limit. If the app calls getNumericErrorCode() on the exception, the return value depends on what API level the app targets:

• Apps targeting Android 17 (API level 37) or higher: getNumericErrorCode() returns the new ERROR_TOO_MANY_KEYS value.
• All other apps: getNumericErrorCode() returns ERROR_INCORRECT_USAGE.

Block cross profile loopback traffic

Beginning with Android 17, cross-profile loopback traffic is no longer permitted by default. Loopback traffic within the same profile is not affected. This change applies to all apps running on Android 17 or higher, regardless of what API level the app targets.

User experience and system UI

Android 17 includes the following changes that are intended to create a more consistent, intuitive user experience.

Restoring default IME visibility after rotation

从 Android 17 开始，当设备的配置发生变化（例如，通过旋转）且应用本身未处理此变化时，系统不会恢复之前的 IME 可见性。

如果应用经历了它无法处理的配置更改，并且应用需要在更改后显示键盘，您必须明确请求此行为。您可以通过以下方式之一提出此要求：

• 将 android:windowSoftInputMode 属性设置为 stateAlwaysVisible。
• 在 activity 的 onCreate() 方法中以编程方式请求显示软键盘，或添加 onConfigurationChanged() 方法。

Human input

Android 17 includes the following changes that affect how apps interact with human input devices like keyboards and touchpads.

Touchpads deliver relative events by default during pointer capture

Beginning with Android 17, if an app requests pointer capture using View.requestPointerCapture() and the user uses a touchpad, the system recognizes pointer movement and scrolling gestures from the user's touches and reports them to the app in the same way as pointer and scroll wheel movements from a captured mouse. In most cases, this removes the need for apps that support captured mice to add special handling logic for touchpads. For more details, see the documentation for View.POINTER_CAPTURE_MODE_RELATIVE.

Previously, the system did not attempt to recognize gestures from the touchpad, and instead delivered the raw, absolute finger locations to the app in a similar format to touchscreen touches. If an app still requires this absolute data, it should call the new View.requestPointerCapture(int) method with View.POINTER_CAPTURE_MODE_ABSOLUTE instead.

Media

Android 17 includes the following changes to media behavior.

Background audio hardening

Beginning with Android 17, the audio framework enforces restrictions on background audio interactions including audio playback, audio focus requests, and volume change APIs to ensure that these changes are started intentionally by the user.

If the app tries to call audio APIs while the app is not in a valid lifecycle, the audio playback and volume change APIs fail silently without throwing an exception or providing a failure message. The audio focus API fails with the result code AUDIOFOCUS_REQUEST_FAILED.

Note: The restrictions are more stringent if an app targets Android 17 (API level 37). For these apps, the foreground service must have while-in-use (WIU) capabilities, unless the app has the exact alarm permission and is interacting with USAGE_ALARM audio streams.

For more information, including mitigation strategies, see Background audio hardening.

Connectivity

Android 17 includes the following changes to enhance device connectivity.

Autonomous re-pairing for Bluetooth bond losses

Android 17 introduces autonomous re-pairing, a system-level enhancement designed to automatically resolve Bluetooth bond loss.

Previously, if a bond was lost, users had to manually navigate to Settings to unpair and then re-pair the peripheral. This feature builds upon the security improvement of Android 16 by allowing the system to re-establish bonds in the background without requiring users to manually navigate to Settings to unpair and re-pair peripherals.

While most apps will not require code changes, developers should be aware of the following behavior changes in Bluetooth stack:

• New pairing context: The ACTION_PAIRING_REQUEST now includes the EXTRA_PAIRING_CONTEXT extra which allows apps to distinguish between a standard pairing request and an autonomous system-initiated re-pairing attempt.
• Conditional key updates: Existing security keys will only be replaced if the re-pairing is successful and new connection meets or exceeds the security level of the previous bond.
• Modified intent timing: The ACTION_KEY_MISSING intent is now broadcast only if the autonomous re-pairing attempt fails. This reduces unnecessary error handling in the app if the system successfully recovers the bond in the background.
• User notification: The system manages re-pairing via new UI notifications and dialogs. Users will be prompted to confirm the re-pairing attempt to ensure they are aware of the reconnection.

Peripheral device manufacturers and companion app developers should verify that hardware and app gracefully handle bond transitions. To test this behavior, simulate a remote bond loss using either of the following methods:

• Manually remove the bond information from the peripheral device
• Manually unpair the device in: Settings > Connected devices