Obtain the Linux UID of an Android App

Question

I would like to be able to get the Linux UID (user ID) of an installed Android application.

Excerpt from Security and Permissions: "At install time, Android gives each package a distinct Linux user ID. The identity remains constant for the duration of the package's life on that device."

Is there a way to retrieve this UID?

score 53 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 21 '13 at 01:07

53

adb shell dumpsys package com.example.myapp | grep userId=

answered Sep 21 '13 at 01:07

Joe Bowbeer

3,574
3
36
47

score 26 · Accepted Answer · answered May 25 '11 at 12:43

26

Use PackageManager and getApplicationInfo().

answered May 25 '11 at 12:43

CommonsWare

986,068
189
2,389
2,491

Yes, I missed the last field in the ApplicationInfo class. Thank you :) – Erez A. Korn May 26 '11 at 06:15
do you know how we can get the uid of the App from the linux kernel of android? – user489152 Jul 27 '11 at 13:35
@user489152 If the app currently has an open process, then the `ps` command which walks the /proc/pid structure exported by the kernel will show the UID of that process. – Chris Stratton May 27 '14 at 19:29

score 12 · Answer 3 · edited May 16 '18 at 12:47

12

The ‍packages.xml file present in /data/system
The packages.list file present in /data/system

Contain the list of applications installed and their corresponding UID's.

edited May 16 '18 at 12:47

frogatto

28,539
11
83
129

answered Mar 26 '12 at 22:48

pavan

121
1
2

score 8 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 10 '20 at 13:07

8

Use android.os.Process.myUid() to get the calling apps UID directly.

Using the PackageManager is not necessary to find the own UID.

answered Mar 10 '20 at 13:07

Jonas Zeiger

140
2
3

score 4 · Answer 5 · edited May 16 '18 at 12:48

4

PackageManager packageManager = getPackageManager();
try {
    applicationId = String.valueOf(packageManager.getApplicationInfo("com.example.app", PackageManager.GET_META_DATA));
} catch (PackageManager.NameNotFoundException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}

edited May 16 '18 at 12:48

frogatto

28,539
11
83
129

answered Dec 26 '17 at 07:27

Ege Kuzubasioglu

5,991
12
49
85

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Mar 21 '19 at 15:17

As CommonsWare already wrote, you can use PackageManager to get the UID.

Here's an example:

int uid;
try {
    ApplicationInfo info = context.getPackageManager().getApplicationInfo(
            context.getPackageName(), 0);
    uid = info.uid;
} catch (PackageManager.NameNotFoundException e) {
    uid = -1;
}
Log.i(LOG_TAG, "UID = " + uid);

Obtain the Linux UID of an Android App

6 Answers6

Linked