Selecting the best storage expertise

To make use of the picture picker in your app, you solely must register an exercise consequence:

The picture picker permits customization of media kind choice between photographs, movies, or a selected mime kind when launched:

You’ll be able to set a most restrict when permitting a number of choices:

Lastly, you’ll be able to allow the picture picker assist on older units from Android KitKat onwards (API 19+) utilizing Google Play providers, by including this entry to your AndroidManifest.xml file:

In lower than 20 traces of code you have got a well-integrated picture/video picker inside your app that doesn’t require any permissions!

Creating your individual gallery picker

Creating your individual gallery picker requires intensive improvement and upkeep, and the app must request storage permissions to get express person consent, which customers can deny, or, as of Android 14, restrict entry to chose media.

First, request the proper storage permissions within the Android manifest relying on the OS model:

Then, the app must request the proper runtime permissions, additionally relying on the OS model:

With the Chosen Images Entry characteristic in Android 14, your app ought to undertake the brand new READ_MEDIA_VISUAL_USER_SELECTED permission to manage media re-selection, and replace your app’s UX to let customers grant your app entry to a distinct set of pictures and movies.

When opening the choice dialog, photographs and/or movies can be proven relying on the permissions requested: when you’re requesting the READ_MEDIA_VIDEO permission with out the READ_MEDIA_IMAGES permission, solely movies would seem within the UI for customers to pick out recordsdata.

You’ll be able to examine in case your app has full, partial or denied entry to the machine’s picture library and replace your UX accordingly. It is much more vital now to request these permissions when the app wants storage entry, as an alternative of at startup. Understand that the permission grant will be modified between the onStart and onResume lifecycle callbacks, because the person can change the entry within the settings with out closing your app.

When you verified you have got entry to the correct storage permissions, you’ll be able to work together with MediaStore to question the machine library (whether or not the granted entry is partial or full):

The code snippet above is simplified as an example how one can work together with MediaStore. In a correct manufacturing app, it is best to think about using pagination with one thing just like the Paging library to make sure good efficiency.

You could not want permissions

As of Android 10 (API 29), you not want storage permissions so as to add recordsdata to shared storage. This implies you could add pictures to the gallery, document movies and save them to shared storage, or obtain PDF invoices with out having to request storage permissions. In case your app solely provides recordsdata to shared storage and doesn’t question pictures or movies, it is best to cease requesting storage permissions and set a maxSdkVersion of API 28 in your AndroidManifest.xml:

ACTION_GET_CONTENT habits change

In our final storage weblog publish, we introduced that we’ll be rolling out a habits change every time ACTION_GET_CONTENT intent is launched with a picture and/or video mime kind. In case you haven’t examined but this alteration, you’ll be able to allow it manually in your machine:

That covers how one can supply visible media choice in your app with the privacy-preserving adjustments we have made throughout a number of Android releases.You probably have any suggestions or ideas, submit tickets to our situation tracker.