My application has user pick a public directory (with Intent.ACTION_OPEN_DOCUMENT_TREE) to make a directory to save files that can be later extracted from the device. I also want to persist the path to the created directory to make it easier to access from the app.

For this I tried using File.mkdir() and Files.createDirectory(), neither of which managed to create the directories, so I decided to use DocumentFile as shown below:

fun saveFileDirectory(uri: Uri) {
    
    val chosenDirectory = DocumentFile.fromTreeUri(applicationContext, uri)
    if (chosenDirectory != null) {
        val newDirectory = chosenDirectory.createDirectory("newDirectory")

        newDirectory?.createDirectory("dir1")
        newDirectory?.createDirectory("dir2")

        val newUri = newDirectory?.uri

        //persisting the path
        viewModelScope.launch {
            applicationContext.dataStore.updateData { data ->
                data.copy(saveFileDirectory = newUri!!)
            }
        }
}

This code successfully creates directories and persists the Uri to the created directory, but when I use that persisted Uri as initial uri for the file picker, the directory that was chosen by the user (which is a parent directory to the created directory) gets opened instead.

For example, user picks "/save" directory, so the input Uri is

content://com.android.externalstorage.documents/tree/primary:save

function saveFileDirectory will save the following path:

content://com.android.externalstorage.documents/tree/primary:save/document/primary:save/newDirectory

Then, the Uri is read into a variable named localSaveFileDirectory and used as an initial Uri for the file picker like this:

val intent = Intent(Intent.ACTION_OPEN_DOCUMENT).apply {
    addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_OPENABLE)
    putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TITLE, "test.csv")
    putExtra(DocumentsContract.EXTRA_INITIAL_URI, Uri.withAppendedPath(localSaveFileDirectory, "dir1"))
    type = "*/*"
}
launcherRead.launch(intent)

However, when user tries to pick a file, "/save" directory is opened.
I want it to open "/save/newDirectory" instead.