Introducing the Watchdog App: Rethinking Digital Trust
In an age where countless apps request permissions and access to our personal data, blind trust is no longer an option. Watchdog is my experimental approach to tackling this challenge—a lightweight project designed to monitor how apps interact with your files.
Instead of snooping silently, Watchdog acts as your digital sentinel. It keeps an eye on file access in the background, alerting you whenever an app attempts to interact with your folders. Think of it as a personal gatekeeper: vigilant, reliable, and transparent.
This project began as a curiosity-driven experiment—part exploration, part proof of concept. While it’s not a polished, production-ready tool yet, Watchdog offers a glimpse into how users can reclaim visibility and control over app behavior. Consider it an early step toward building stronger digital self-defense, with plenty of room for refinement and innovation ahead.
What Watchdog Does
Monitors background file access by installed apps
Notifies you when an app interacts with your files or folders
Displays the permissions requested by each app for greater transparency
- Clone or download the repository
- Open the project in Android Studio
- Run the app on an Android device or emulator
- Android Studio
- Android device or emulator running API level 28 or higher
- Launch the app
- Select an app from the list to view its permissions and file access logs
- Tap the "Save Log" button to save the logs to a file
- Displays a list of installed apps with their permissions and file access logs
- Monitors the file access of each app in the background
- Saves the logs to a file for later analysis
- Add the ability to Block and Terminate Unwanted File Access.
- As at the time this project was made, testing was not a major concern.
- This is a rough implementation to test the idea, there's no emphasis on crisp UI components, planning to refine it more later.
- For any comments,suggestions,feedback or possible collaborations, contact me via email: pwachira900@gmail.com or shoot me a quick message at https://peter-wachira.com
- I am open to contributors