Can data written via Capacitor Preferences API be read by other apps?

[elohanlon]

Hi everyone,

I have some simple string data values that I want to store in my Capacitor app, and they don't need to be encrypted, but I still don't want them to be readable by other apps on the same device (on iOS and Android). Would the Capacitor Preferences API (https://capacitorjs.com/docs/apis/preferences) work for this need?

[elohanlon]

I think I might have found the answer to my own question. In the Capacitor docs, it says that the Capacitor Preferences API uses "UserDefaults on iOS and SharedPreferences on Android":

1. It appears that for iOS, UserDefaults can't be read by other apps (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/userdefaults), and the exceptional cases noted don't seem to apply to a standalone Capacitor app.

2. For Android, I see the use of MODE_PRIVATE in the Preference API's Preferences.java file (https://github.com/ionic-team/capacitor-plugins/blob/87e7a93a1788d81d0764525ef9e9c21989757bcb/preferences/android/src/main/java/com/capacitorjs/plugins/preferences/Preferences.java#L17), so that also makes me think that values written by a Capacitor Android application can only be read by the application that created them (https://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/Context.html#MODE_PRIVATE).

So that seems like just what I want! Though if anyone with more experience on the native iOS/Android side can confirm the above points with more certainty, I'd definitely appreciate it!