Hi,
I wasn’t sure in which category this topic fits, as it’s not about a specific app, but in general.
Is it possible to allow an application to access only certain folders? For example: VLC media player is only allowed to access the Video and Music folder and no access to Documents, Photos, etc.
Thank you!
I have moved the post to the snapd category, which seems most applicable for this …
Sadly today the home interface does not have any finer grained abilities to block access to certain dirs or files, it grants access to all non-hidden file of the users home dir …
There is a workaround/hack that could be used on the packagers side of things though by (ab)using the personal-files interface and add interface entries for each of these folders individually (and omitting “home” completely) but that would become a nightmare for the reviewers that have to individually review each personal-files usage in a snap …
It’s worth mentioning, this is in extremely early beta for the home interface on Ubuntu 24.10; you can enable fine grained folder access, limited to the folders the home interface would normally grant (I.E fine control over say documents vs pictures, but still unable to grant .ssh). You can enable this in the Ubuntu Security Center if you’re on 24.10 or higher.
It’s still rough and actively experimental however; and be cautious that enabling this might bring up subtle bugs (or not so subtle bugs) in apps that otherwise aren’t expecting to have the home interface suddenly modified beneath them.
Thank you, ogra and James-Carroll!
I use Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS and have looked at the Ubuntu Security Center with an Ubuntu 24.10 VM. It looks very promising and is exactly what I am looking for. I look forward to seeing it in the next LTS (hopefully) 
