I have a phone running stock Android 13 and every few days a folder is created called Cache and inserts some generic images into the folder.
Does anyone have ideas on how I can identify which app is doing this?
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Google arts & culture?
Project by Google focused on learning about art pieces
Maybe a reverse image search, or a search for the filenames? Might turn up something.
Other than, I agree with the suggestion of limiting file permissions and trying to identify it that way. Or maybe you could open your phone in safe mode and try opening apps one by one to see which one triggers the folder creation.
Also, where in the folder structure is the Cache folder appearing?
Opening an app doesn’t cause the cache folder to be created. I have been through the apps twice and the folder has not appeared. I deleted the folder around 1500 today and it came back at around 1700 according to the folder and file creation times. But I wasn’t using my phone at that time.
I generally don’t trust the permissions boxes as there are some apps like Smart Audiobook player or Files which do have access to the file system but show No permissions granted in the app info.
as for the location of the folder it is in the root user directory along with DCIM, Downloads, and Documents folders.
Hmmm. Very odd. Hope you can find the culprit!
it is possible that one of the apps on your phone is a trojan,
and is creating a generic “red herring” in order to hide what it’s really doing.
it also is possible that this is just some Google keep-politically-correct-images-available stuff, and those images are part of your Android’s current install, or part of another app’s current install, and your Android is seeing those images, & is thumbnailing them.
Either way, I think it’s Android doing it, not some app you installed ( Google’s photos app, is most likely culprit )
Probably your photo gallery caching thumbnails of photos u have. From terminal it should bd possible to know but not sure if there is an app for it
They said “generic images” so it sounds like it’s not photos.
No the images are not caches of my photos they are more generic modern art stuff and the same every time.
I should have screenshot it.Probably some kind of wallpaper app then? Or maybe a video call app downloading backgrounds?
You could try limiting files permissions on a bunch of apps to see what gets them to stop.
The only things that say they have file permissions are the usual messaging apps like Whatsapp, Signal, Messenger, and Discord along with Firefox, dropbox and onedrive. But there are other apps that have file access but don’t come up in the list of permissions like Files, Smart Audiobook player, and Podcast Addict.
