An Android 11 feature is coming to your Samsung phone… without Android 11

Google's been making Android more secure with every major new release. One way Android keeps your data secure is through app permissions, with recent versions of the OS asking you to allow or deny an app from accessing device features such as camera or location the first time you install and run it so you have greater control over your privacy.

With Android 11, Google added automatic reset of permissions for apps that haven't been used for a few months, similar to how Samsung's software — which runs atop Android — can disable unused apps so they don't run in the background unnecessarily. While the permissions auto-reset feature has been exclusive to devices running Android 11 all this time, it will soon come to your Samsung phone even if you're not running Android 11.

Starting December, if your Galaxy smartphone or tablet runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow and above and has access to Google apps and services, it will gain support for auto reset of permissions for unused apps. The feature will be enabled for any app that targets/supports Android 11. For older apps that haven't been updated with support for Android 11 and only officially support older versions of the OS, you will be able to manually enable the feature from device settings.

We'll learn more about how the permissions auto-reset feature will work on devices that run an OS version older than Android 11 in the future, and we'll let you know once it actually rolls out to the millions of Galaxy smartphones and tablets Samsung has sold over the last half decade.