Clarification on Minor Background Data Usage

[RHJihan]

I was going through my phone’s data usage settings and noticed that HeliBoard has used a small amount of background data (7.69 KB over the past month), even though I understand that the app doesn’t request internet permissions and is supposed to be fully offline.

Screenshot

I am curious about what might be happening behind the scenes.

App version
Upto 6bbce0b

Device:

• Model: Samsung Galaxy M32
• OS: Android 13 (OneUI 5.1)

[Helium314]

I'm certainly not the right person to anwer how this attribution works, but 2 ideas so far:

• There are some links in the app. Maybe when you open a browser from HeliBoard, the data use is attributed to HeliBoard. Could count as background because HeliBoard is in background at that point?
• You can open files that are not on the device, see Opening files over network leads to a crash of the app. #509. Not sure why this would count as background though.

[eranl]

I also see this, and I haven't opened an off-device file AFAIK. My guess is the SDK or some library is doing it.
It could be interesting to track this down. @Helium314, Would you like me to investigate?

[Helium314]

If you're interested you can check what's going on. But I'd put it to some Android weirdness, as an app without internet permission can't access internet (assuming Android isn't totally broken).