Although AFAIK Android's implementation then means that you can end up with duplicate entries for the same file if you open it through differing means (like bot

Although AFAIK Android's implementation then means that you can end up with duplicate entries for the same file if you open it through differing means (like both through an external file manager as well as within the app's own UI), because those result in distinct content URIs and there are no official APIs that would allow you to confirm whether two separate content URIs are actually pointing to the same file (where that'd make sense, e.g. for files on the local file system at least [1]). [1] I think there are some hacks to work around that issue, but obviously they aren't guaranteed to work all of the time.