Let’s Do the Time Warp

Back when Android 10 was still Android Q, we were told that android:requestLegacyExternalStorage="true" would no longer work once we raised targetSdkVersion to 29.

Somewhere along the line, Google rescinded that, and the author of this book missed that change.

It appears that in the final release of Android 10, Google allowed android:requestLegacyExternalStorage="true" regardless of targetSdkVersion.

Since Android 11 also honors it — at least until you reach targetSdkVersion 30 — this gives you a bit more time to adapt to scoped storage.