<provider>

Only declare content providers that are part of your application. Don't declare content providers in other applications that you use in your application.

The Android system stores references to content providers according to an authority string, part of the provider's content URI. For example, suppose you want to access a content provider that stores information about health care professionals. To do this, you call the method ContentResolver.query(), which takes a URI that identifies the provider, among other arguments:

content://com.example.project.healthcareprovider/nurses/rn

The content: scheme identifies the URI as a content URI pointing to an Android content provider. The authority com.example.project.healthcareprovider identifies the provider itself. The Android system looks up the authority in its list of known providers and their authorities. The substring nurses/rn is a path, which the content provider uses to identify subsets of the provider data.

When you define your provider in the <provider> element, you don't include the scheme or the path in the android:name argument, only the authority.

For information about using and developing content providers, see Content providers.

android:authorities

A list of one or more URI authorities that identify data offered by the content provider. List multiple authorities by separating their names with a semicolon. To avoid conflicts, use a Java-style naming convention for authority names, such as com.example.provider.cartoonprovider. Typically, it's the name of the ContentProvider subclass that implements the provider

There is no default. At least one authority must be specified.

android:enabled

Whether the content provider can be instantiated by the system. It's "true" if it can be, and "false" if not. The default value is "true".

The <application> element has its own enabled attribute that applies to all application components, including content providers. The <application> and <provider> attributes both have to be "true", as they both are by default, for the content provider to be enabled. If either is "false", the provider is disabled. It can't be instantiated.

android:directBootAware

Whether the content provider is Direct-Boot aware—that is, whether it can run before the user unlocks the device.

Note: During Direct Boot, a content provider in your application can only access the data that is stored in device protected storage.

The default value is "false".

android:exported

Whether the content provider is available for other applications to use.

• "true": the provider is available to other applications. Any application can use the provider's content URI to access it, subject to the permissions specified for the provider.
• "false": the provider isn't available to other applications. Set android:exported="false" to limit access to the provider to your applications. Only applications that have the same user ID (UID) as the provider, or applications that are temporarily granted access to the provider through the android:grantUriPermissions element, have access to it.

Because this attribute was introduced in API level 17, all devices running API level 16 and lower behave as though this attribute is set "true". If you set android:targetSdkVersion to 17 or higher, then the default value is "false" for devices running API level 17 and higher.

You can set android:exported="false" and still limit access to your provider by setting permissions with the permission attribute.

android:grantUriPermissions

Whether those who ordinarily don't have permission to access the content provider's data can be granted permission to do so, temporarily overcoming the restriction imposed by the readPermission, writePermission, permission, and exported attributes.

It's "true" if permission can be granted, and "false" if not. If "true", permission can be granted to any of the content provider's data. If "false", permission can be granted only to the data subsets listed in <grant-uri-permission> subelements, if any. The default value is "false".

Granting permission is a way of giving an application component one-time access to data protected by a permission. For example, when an email message contains an attachment, the mail application might call on the appropriate viewer to open it, even though the viewer doesn't have general permission to look at all the content provider's data.

In such cases, permission is granted by FLAG_GRANT_READ_URI_PERMISSION and FLAG_GRANT_WRITE_URI_PERMISSION flags in the Intent object that activates the component. For example, the mail application might put FLAG_GRANT_READ_URI_PERMISSION in the Intent passed to Context.startActivity(). The permission is specific to the URI in the Intent.

If you enable this feature, either by setting this attribute to "true" or by defining <grant-uri-permission> subelements, call Context.revokeUriPermission() when a covered URI is deleted from the provider.

See also the <grant-uri-permission> element.

android:icon

An icon representing the content provider. This attribute is set as a reference to a drawable resource containing the image definition. If it isn't set, the icon specified for the application as a whole is used instead. For more information, see the <application> element's icon attribute.

android:initOrder

The order in which the content provider is instantiated, relative to other content providers hosted by the same process. When there are dependencies among content providers, setting this attribute for each of them makes sure that they are created in the order required by those dependencies. The value is an integer, with higher numbers being initialized first.

android:intentMatchingFlags

Use this attribute to fine-tune how the system matches incoming intents to app components. By default, no special matching rules are applied.

The value set on a <provider> tag overrides the value set on the <application> tag.

The value must be one or more of the following flags, separated by '|':

Flag	Description
none	Disables all special matching rules for incoming intents. When specifying multiple flags, conflicting values are resolved by giving precedence to the none flag.
enforceIntentFilter	Enforces stricter matching for incoming intents: Explicit intents must match the target component's intent filter. Intents without an action don't match any intent filter.
allowNullAction	Relaxes the matching rules to allow intents without an action to match. This flag is used in conjunction with enforceIntentFilter to achieve the following behavior: Explicit intents must match the target component's intent filter. Intents without an action are allowed to match any intent filter.

For more information, see the Safer Intents section in the Android 16 (API level 36) behavior changes.

android:label

A user-readable label for the content provided. If this attribute isn't set, the label set for the application as a whole is used instead. For more information, see the <application> element's label attribute.

The label is usually set as a reference to a string resource, so that it can be localized like other strings in the user interface. However, as a convenience while you're developing the application, it can also be set as a raw string.

android:multiprocess

If the app runs in multiple processes, this attribute determines whether multiple instances of the content provider are created. If "true", each of the app's processes has its own content provider object. If "false", the app's processes share only one content provider object. The default value is "false".

Setting this flag to "true" can improve performance by reducing the overhead of interprocess communication, but it also increases the memory footprint of each process.

android:name

The name of the class that implements the content provider, a subclass of ContentProvider. This is usually a fully qualified class name, such as "com.example.project.TransportationProvider". However, as a shorthand, if the first character of the name is a period, it is appended to the package name specified in the <manifest> element.

There is no default. The name must be specified.

android:permission

The name of a permission that clients must have to read or write the content provider's data. This attribute is a convenient way of setting a single permission for both reading and writing. However, the readPermission, writePermission, and grantUriPermissions attributes take precedence over this one.

If the readPermission attribute is also set, it controls access for querying the content provider. If the writePermission attribute is set, it controls access for modifying the provider's data.

For more information about permissions, see the Permissions section in the app manifest overview and Security tips.

android:process

The name of the process in which the content provider runs. Normally, all components of an application run in the default process created for the application. It has the same name as the application package.

The <application> element's process attribute can set a different default for all components. But each component can override the default with its own process attribute, letting you spread your application across multiple processes.

If the name assigned to this attribute begins with a colon (:), a new process, private to the application, is created when it's needed and the activity runs in that process.

If the process name begins with a lowercase character, the activity runs in a global process of that name, provided that it has permission to do so. This lets components in different applications share a process, reducing resource usage.

android:readPermission

A permission that clients must have to query the content provider.

If the provider sets android:grantUriPermissions to "true", or if a given client satisfies the conditions of a <grant-uri-permission> subelement, the client can gain temporary read access to the content provider's data.

See also the permission and writePermission attributes.

android:syncable

Whether the data under the content provider's control can be synchronized with data on a server. It's "true" if it can be, and "false" if not.

android:writePermission

A permission that clients need to make changes to the data controlled by the content provider.

If the provider sets android:grantUriPermissions to "true", or if a given client satisfies the conditions of a <grant-uri-permission> subelement, the client can gain temporary write access to modify the content provider's data.

See also the permission and readPermission attributes.