Methods, systems, and computer program products are provided for enabling selective file system access by applications. An application is installed in a computing device. An application manifest associated with the application is received. The application manifest indicates one or more file types that the application is allowed to access. The indicated file type(s) are registered in a location accessible by a broker service. The application is launched as an application process. The application process is isolated in an application container. The application container prevents direct access by the application process to file system data. An access request related to first data of the file system data is received at the broker service from the application process. Access by the application process to the first data is enabled when the broker service determines that a file type of the first data is included in the registered file type(s).
