Permissions Required by YouMail on Android

Like many services, we ask you to approve a couple permissions when creating an account and activating with YouMail. If you're wondering what these permissions are for, or even hesitant about agreeing to them, this article is for you.

First, we understand your hesitancy and applaud your diligence. We agree that it's important to protect yourself and we care about security as well. After all, we are in the business of stopping those nasty scammers from invading your privacy (and wallets)!

Below, we've outlined what each permission is for and your options with accepting or declining those permissions. For more information, see our Privacy Policy.

Phone & Calls: Required
At the core of our services, we are a robocall blocking and voicemail replacement. This means to work our (award-winning) magic, we do at the very minimum need permission to access your phone and call information. So how do these permissions actually help you?

1. When we're your voicemail
   This permission lets us know what your phone number and carrier are so that when our servers see a phone call coming in, we can match it up and send it to you instead of another random user! We're not keen on Joe in Montana learning about your doctor's appointment in California tomorrow.
   
   
2. When we're your call blocker
   You know all those annoying robocalls you get offering you a free hotel stay or threatening to arrest you? Yup, we hate those too. That's why we made our killer robocall blocking features. This permission lets us see the number of incoming calls and check if they are the bad guys so that we can keep your phone from ringing. (...Unless you like scammers ringing your phone?)

Contacts: Optional
Whether you want to give YouMail contact permission is completely up to you. We do have to warn you though: our app is far more helpful and smarter if we are given this access. But of course, we understand if you don't want to give it.

1. When we're your voicemail
   This lets you unlock one of our fan-favorite features: our Smart Greeting. This feature lets us greet your callers by name (like "Hi Sarah" or "Hi Mom"). We can also show their names and pictures when we send you alerts (in-app and by email) with this extra bit of information. 
   
   
2. When we're your call blocker
   This permission lets us never accidentally block your contacts from reaching you. Robocallers unfortunately are getting sneakier and sneakier. Spammers like to pretend they're you neighbors, friends, local tailor through a tactic called neighborhood spoofing.
   
   If your phone number is (310) 555-9162, spammers will spoof themselves as (310) 555-9100 to look like a local, trustworthy person or entity. If you grant contact permission, we won't accidentally be too aggressive trying to protect you here.

Microphone: Optional
This is only used if you want to record a snazzy new outbound voicemail greetings for your callers to hear. Feel free to turn this off if you're concerned about it. (Then if you do ever want to record your own greeting, we'll give you the option to turn it on again.)

Location: Not Needed!
We believe that your privacy is far more important than geographically targeted ads! 

***Below are a couple extras depending on your Android version.***

On Android Oreo(8) & Pie(9)
Default Phone App: Optional (to silence the ringer for spam calls)
For whatever reason, Google decided that the ability to screen calls reliably on Oreo and Pie required apps to be the "default phone app."

If you'd like us to block robocalls from ringing your phone and be your visual voicemail, please give us this permission. If you just want us for voicemail, we don't need this permission. (Note: Even if you don't give us this permission, we can still put spam voicemails into a spam folder for you.)

On Android 10+
Call Screening Role: Optional (to silence the ringer for spam calls)
Google officially recognized call blocking/screening apps with their release of Android 10 and introduced a new "call screening role" that apps can request and be granted. 

If you'd like us to block robocalls from ringing your phone and be your visual voicemail, please give us this permission. If you just want us for voicemail, we don't need this permission. (Note: Even if you don't give us this permission, we can still put spam voicemails into a spam folder for you.)

If you have any questions at all, don't hesitate to submit a ticket or Live Chat us at support.youmail.com. We'd love to help you out!