If you have used an Android phone for any length of time, you have almost certainly seen a pop-up like the one below asking you to grant an app a specific permission.
These pop-ups only appear for what Google labels the "dangerous" permission group, which covers nine categories: body sensors, calendar, camera, contacts, location, microphone, phone, SMS, and storage.
Plenty of apps genuinely need these permissions. A video-calling app such as Messenger or Skype cannot work without your camera and microphone, for instance.
A single-player puzzle game requesting the exact same access, however, is a warning sign, since it has no real reason to need that data.
Android asks for these permissions one at a time, as they come up, but some developers still bundle several requests into a single prompt. People who are used to tapping "Allow" without reading can end up granting access that has nothing to do with the app actually working, and that access can be misused.
How can you spot potentially malicious apps on Android?
The nine dangerous permissions are only part of the story. Android quietly grants many other permissions the moment an app is installed, without ever asking you. Most of these are harmless, but a handful can be abused or raise privacy concerns.
Based on our own review, we track sixteen additional permissions worth watching. This grouping is not an official Google classification — it is simply a list of items we think deserve a closer look before you trust an app.
These sixteen include: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, network access, audio settings changes, NFC, background activity, infrared, biometrics, vibration control, in-app purchases, sending SMS, recording audio, placing phone calls, precise location, drawing over other apps, and reading or writing system settings.
Outside of a dedicated tool such as Revo Permission Analyzer, the only place you can normally check whether an app uses any of these extra permissions is that app's own Google Play listing — Android's built-in Settings menu will not show them to you.
The screenshots below compare the stock Android Settings app (left) with Revo Permission Analyzer (right) for the same app. Both correctly flag the dangerous camera and storage permissions, but only Revo Permission Analyzer also surfaces the Wi-Fi, network, vibration, and other extra permissions in use.
Keep in mind that these extra permissions are informational only — you cannot toggle them off individually. Installing the app is treated as automatic consent to all of them.
A tool built for this exact job
Revo Permission Analyzer, from VS Revo Group, includes a Permission Analyzer feature that lets you filter every app installed on your device by the specific permissions it uses.
Get Revo Permission Analyzer from the Google Play Store.
Once the app is open, tap the Permission Analyzer button near the bottom-left corner, or open the drawer menu and choose Permission Analyzer from there.
You will land on a table of switchable permission categories. The free version limits you to six of them — calendar, camera, contacts, location, microphone, and phone. The remaining three dangerous permissions and all sixteen extra permissions are locked behind the Pro version.
Flip any of the switches and the app list updates instantly to show only the apps that use the selected permission(s).
As an example, turning on both in-app purchase and send SMS lets you spot which apps could cost you money — apps a child might use to make an accidental purchase with a saved card, or apps capable of sending premium-rate text messages.
Or try toggling Bluetooth, network, and NFC together to see every app capable of connecting to nearby devices and exchanging data that could be sensitive.
Depending on how many apps match your filter, Revo Uninstaller Mobile shows a row of app icons at the bottom of the screen, pulled at random from the matching results.
Tap that icon row to open a full list of every app matching the permissions you selected.
Tap any app in that list to see every permission it uses. Dangerous permissions appear first, followed by the extra permissions we track, listed under the "all permissions below are built-in" heading.
The dangerous permissions section lists everything the app is capable of using in general. A checkmark means that permission has already been requested and granted; no checkmark means the app has not asked for it yet.
Remember that only the dangerous permissions can actually be revoked from your device settings. Every other permission on the list is view-only — that limitation comes from Android itself, not from Revo Permission Analyzer.
Final thoughts
App permissions genuinely matter for your security and privacy. Knowing ahead of time which apps could leak personal data or hit you with an unexpected purchase gives you a chance to pick a safer alternative before something goes wrong.
Stock Android lets you manage the nine dangerous permissions, but it tells you nothing about the sixteen extra permissions we track, and its built-in filtering options are minimal at best.
Revo Permission Analyzer fills that gap. It still relies on Android's own controls to actually grant or revoke dangerous permissions, since that restriction is built into the OS, but it gives you a much clearer, filterable view of everything an app can access, making it far easier to review your device at a glance.
You can get Revo Permission Analyzer from the Google Play Store.
No Comments