How do I check if an app is a non-system app in Android?

Question

I am getting a list of ApplicationInfo Objects with packageManager.getInstalledApplications(0) and attempting to categorize them by whether or not they are a sy

Answer 1

Here are different possible ways to see if the app is a system app by its package name (used some of the codes in this post)

package com.test.util;

import android.content.Context;
import android.content.pm.ApplicationInfo;
import android.content.pm.PackageInfo;
import android.content.pm.PackageManager;
import android.content.pm.PackageManager.NameNotFoundException;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.util.HashSet;
import java.util.Scanner;
import java.util.Set;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;

import timber.log.Timber;


public class SystemAppChecker {
    private PackageManager packageManager = null;

    public SystemAppChecker(Context context) {
        packageManager = context.getPackageManager();
    }

    /**
     * Check if system app by 'pm' command-line program
     *
     * @param packageName
     *            package name of application. Cannot be null.
     * @return true if package is a system app.
     */
    public boolean isSystemAppByPM(String packageName) {
        if (packageName == null) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Package name cannot be null");
        }
        ProcessBuilder builder = new ProcessBuilder("pm", "list", "packages", "-s");
        Process process = null;
        try {
            process = builder.start();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            Timber.e(e);
            return false;
        }

        InputStream in = process.getInputStream();
        Scanner scanner = new Scanner(in);
        Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("^package:.+");
        int skip = "package:".length();

        Set systemApps = new HashSet();
        while (scanner.hasNext(pattern)) {
            String pckg = scanner.next().substring(skip);
            systemApps.add(pckg);
        }

        scanner.close();
        process.destroy();

        if (systemApps.contains(packageName)) {
            return true;
        }
        return false;
    }

    /**
     * Check if application is preloaded.
     *
     * @param packageName
     *            package name of application. Cannot be null.
     * @return true if package is preloaded.
     */
    public boolean isSystemPreloaded(String packageName) {
        if (packageName == null) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Package name cannot be null");
        }
        try {
            ApplicationInfo ai = packageManager.getApplicationInfo(
                    packageName, 0);
            if (ai.sourceDir.startsWith("/system/app/") || ai.sourceDir.startsWith("/system/priv-app/")) {
                return true;
            }
        } catch (NameNotFoundException e) {
            Timber.e(e);
        }
        return false;
    }

    /**
     * Check if the app is system signed or not
     *
     * @param packageName
     *            package of application. Cannot be blank.
     * @return true if application is signed by system certificate,
     *         otherwise false
     */
    public boolean isSystemSigned(String packageName) {
        if (packageName == null) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Package name cannot be null");
        }
        try {
            // Get packageinfo for target application
            PackageInfo targetPkgInfo = packageManager.getPackageInfo(
                    packageName, PackageManager.GET_SIGNATURES);
            // Get packageinfo for system package
            PackageInfo sys = packageManager.getPackageInfo(
                    "android", PackageManager.GET_SIGNATURES);
            // Match both packageinfo for there signatures
            return (targetPkgInfo != null && targetPkgInfo.signatures != null && sys.signatures[0]
                    .equals(targetPkgInfo.signatures[0]));
        } catch (PackageManager.NameNotFoundException e) {
            Timber.e(e);
        }
        return false;
    }

    /**
     * Check if application is installed in the device's system image
     *
     * @param packageName
     *            package name of application. Cannot be null.
     * @return true if package is a system app.
     */
    public boolean isSystemAppByFLAG(String packageName) {
        if (packageName == null) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Package name cannot be null");
        }
        try {
            ApplicationInfo ai = packageManager.getApplicationInfo(
                    packageName, 0);
            // Check if FLAG_SYSTEM or FLAG_UPDATED_SYSTEM_APP are set.
            if (ai != null
                    && (ai.flags & (ApplicationInfo.FLAG_SYSTEM | ApplicationInfo.FLAG_UPDATED_SYSTEM_APP)) != 0) {
                return true;
            }
        } catch (NameNotFoundException e) {
            Timber.e(e);
        }
        return false;
    }
}