Sms-backup-plus: Permissions gone too far!

[bytesandbuds]

• Android version: The lastest, I'm not sure
• Phone model / brand: Samsung-SM-G950U
• SMS Backup+ version installed: 1.5.11
• Messaging app - Default Android

It just popped up on my phone.
The app is asking to read, compose, send and permanently delete all your email from Gmail persmission. I don't remember agreeing to this before. Why is this here? Is this accurate?

[euh2]

This is a generic permission the app must have to save SMS to Gmail. The wording Google uses here is somewhat dramatic.

[eflister]

i am also freaked out by this. why don't you just ask for permission to send? at https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/928 they speculate that it's because IMAP doesn't have fine grained control -- in that case, how about not using IMAP, just send an email!??!

[zetaomegagon]

@eflister

One reason is that IMAP can tell you what messages are already on the server or not. With email you'd have to find a way to mark backed up messages as backed up...so a local database. Otherwise, you'd be backing up the same messages in separate emails over and over again.

Probably if you are just sending an email, it would have to come from an address you own. All backups would have come from the same address. If you went to restore things wouldn't work out properly. Spoofing sender addresses doesn't always work out, so probably not an option.

I'm sure there are many more reasons where IMAP has taken some of the complexity out of the solution.

[kurahaupo]

Sending an email to oneself would lose several important features:

• avoiding duplication of messages (noted above)
• the sender of each message reflects the phone number it was sent from
• the messages can be saved to an IMAP folder other than INBOX
• the message status can be controlled as "read" or "unread" ("new")

You may care to read the privacy policy for this project.
If you do not care about these features (and the privacy policy does not assuage your concerns), there are other apps you could use.

PS: you should redact (blur) your personal information when posting screenshots.