How to get draft SMS in Android 6 Marshmallow

Question

My questions specific only for Android 6 (starting from v23 of SDK). I need to get all SMS, even draft for future processing. Nothing special here, used the following peace of code:

context.getContentResolver().query(Uri.parse("content://sms/"),
new String[] {...}, null, null, null)

And this work perfect for Android 5, meaning that I get all SMS messages including draft. But at all devices with Android 6, I get only sent and received messages and NO DRAFT. Try to make my app default SMS before trying to query SMS – but no luck, at Android 6 i still cannot get draft messages. What the problem? I've already found some related posts SMS missing from content provider results on Android Marshmallow But this do not solve my issue at all.

Answer 1

For Marshmallow you need to add run time permissions to read messages .

Check permission like this

int permissionCheck = ContextCompat.checkSelfPermission(getApplicationContext(), Manifest.permission.READ_SMS);

If permission denied tha ask at run time like that

ActivityCompat.requestPermissions(this, new String[]{{Manifest.permission.READ_SMS}, PERMISSIONS_REQUEST_READMESSAGE);

to access draft this is URI for content provider.

Content provider for draft is

content://sms/draft

Note: dont forget to add permissions

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_SMS"></uses-permission>

Answer 2

I believe what your looking for is found in this answer. It provides a list of URI's for accessing the different SMS boxes. The one specifically for the draft SMS messages is

content://sms/draft