Virtual Files in the Storage Access Framework (Android Development Patterns S3 Ep 11)

Virtual files are a new addition to the Storage Access Framework in Android 7.0 that allow apps to handle files that don’t have a direct bytecode representation - openInputStream() won’t work for these files. While they can be filtered out by adding CATEGORY_OPENABLE to your Intent, you can also take advantage of alternative mime types to transcode files into other formats or build an ACTION_VIEW Intent to open the selected virtual file in the app that provides the file.

Check out the documentation on virtual files at https://goo.gl/NJSXXJ
and read more about the Storage Access Framework at https://goo.gl/kaywXK