android get real path by Uri.getPath()

Question

This is what I do:

Uri selectedImageURI = data.getData();
imageFile = new File(getRealPathFromURI(selectedImageURI));

and:

private String getRealPathFromURI(Uri contentURI) {
    String result;
    Cursor cursor = getContentResolver().query(contentURI, null, null, null, null);
    if (cursor == null) { // Source is Dropbox or other similar local file path
        result = contentURI.getPath();
    } else { 
        cursor.moveToFirst(); 
        int idx = cursor.getColumnIndex(MediaStore.Images.ImageColumns.DATA); 
        result = cursor.getString(idx);
        cursor.close();
    }
    return result;
}

NOTE: managedQuery() method is deprecated, so I am not using it.

Last edit: Improvement. We should close cursor!!

Is it really necessary for you to get a physical path?
For example, ImageView.setImageURI() and ContentResolver.openInputStream() allow you to access the contents of a file without knowing its real path.

@Rene Juuse - above in comments... Thanks for this link !

. the code to get the real path is a bit different from one SDK to another so below we have three methods that deals with different SDKs.

getRealPathFromURI_API19(): returns real path for API 19 (or above but not tested) getRealPathFromURI_API11to18(): returns real path for API 11 to API 18 getRealPathFromURI_below11(): returns real path for API below 11

public class RealPathUtil {

@SuppressLint("NewApi")
public static String getRealPathFromURI_API19(Context context, Uri uri){
    String filePath = "";
    String wholeID = DocumentsContract.getDocumentId(uri);

     // Split at colon, use second item in the array
     String id = wholeID.split(":")[1];

     String[] column = { MediaStore.Images.Media.DATA };     

     // where id is equal to             
     String sel = MediaStore.Images.Media._ID + "=?";

     Cursor cursor = context.getContentResolver().query(MediaStore.Images.Media.EXTERNAL_CONTENT_URI, 
                               column, sel, new String[]{ id }, null);

     int columnIndex = cursor.getColumnIndex(column[0]);

     if (cursor.moveToFirst()) {
         filePath = cursor.getString(columnIndex);
     }   
     cursor.close();
     return filePath;
}


@SuppressLint("NewApi")
public static String getRealPathFromURI_API11to18(Context context, Uri contentUri) {
      String[] proj = { MediaStore.Images.Media.DATA };
      String result = null;

      CursorLoader cursorLoader = new CursorLoader(
              context, 
        contentUri, proj, null, null, null);        
      Cursor cursor = cursorLoader.loadInBackground();

      if(cursor != null){
       int column_index = 
         cursor.getColumnIndexOrThrow(MediaStore.Images.Media.DATA);
       cursor.moveToFirst();
       result = cursor.getString(column_index);
      }
      return result;  
}

public static String getRealPathFromURI_BelowAPI11(Context context, Uri contentUri){
           String[] proj = { MediaStore.Images.Media.DATA };
           Cursor cursor = context.getContentResolver().query(contentUri, proj, null, null, null);
           int column_index
      = cursor.getColumnIndexOrThrow(MediaStore.Images.Media.DATA);
           cursor.moveToFirst();
           return cursor.getString(column_index);
}

font: http://hmkcode.com/android-display-selected-image-and-its-real-path/

---

UPDATE 2016 March

To fix all problems with path of images i try create a custom gallery as facebook and other apps. This is because you can use just local files ( real files, not virtual or temporary) , i solve all problems with this library.

https://github.com/nohana/Laevatein (this library is to take photo from camera or choose from galery , if you choose from gallery he have a drawer with albums and just show local files)

Note This is an improvement in @user3516549 answer and I have check it on Moto G3 with Android 6.0.1
I have this issue so I have tried answer of @user3516549 but in some cases it was not working properly. I have found that in Android 6.0(or above) when we start gallery image pick intent then a screen will open that shows recent images when user select image from this list we will get uri as

content://com.android.providers.media.documents/document/image%3A52530

while if user select gallery from sliding drawer instead of recent then we will get uri as

content://media/external/images/media/52530

So I have handle it in getRealPathFromURI_API19()

public static String getRealPathFromURI_API19(Context context, Uri uri) {
    String filePath = "";
    if (uri.getHost().contains("com.android.providers.media")) {
        // Image pick from recent 
        String wholeID = DocumentsContract.getDocumentId(uri);

        // Split at colon, use second item in the array
        String id = wholeID.split(":")[1];

        String[] column = {MediaStore.Images.Media.DATA};

        // where id is equal to
        String sel = MediaStore.Images.Media._ID + "=?";

        Cursor cursor = context.getContentResolver().query(MediaStore.Images.Media.EXTERNAL_CONTENT_URI,
                column, sel, new String[]{id}, null);

        int columnIndex = cursor.getColumnIndex(column[0]);

        if (cursor.moveToFirst()) {
            filePath = cursor.getString(columnIndex);
        }
        cursor.close();
        return filePath;
    } else {
        // image pick from gallery 
       return  getRealPathFromURI_BelowAPI11(context,uri)
    }
}

EDIT1 : if you are trying to get image path of file in external sdcard in higher version then check my question

EDIT2 Here is complete code with handling virtual files and host other than com.android.providers I have tested this method with content://com.adobe.scan.android.documents/document/

EDIT: Use this Solution here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/20559175/2033223 Works perfect!

First of, thank for your solution @luizfelipetx

I changed your solution a little bit. This works for me:

public static String getRealPathFromDocumentUri(Context context, Uri uri){
    String filePath = "";

    Pattern p = Pattern.compile("(\\d+)$");
    Matcher m = p.matcher(uri.toString());
    if (!m.find()) {
        Log.e(ImageConverter.class.getSimpleName(), "ID for requested image not found: " + uri.toString());
        return filePath;
    }
    String imgId = m.group();

    String[] column = { MediaStore.Images.Media.DATA };
    String sel = MediaStore.Images.Media._ID + "=?";

    Cursor cursor = context.getContentResolver().query(MediaStore.Images.Media.EXTERNAL_CONTENT_URI,
            column, sel, new String[]{ imgId }, null);

    int columnIndex = cursor.getColumnIndex(column[0]);

    if (cursor.moveToFirst()) {
        filePath = cursor.getString(columnIndex);
    }
    cursor.close();

    return filePath;
}

Note: So we got documents and image, depending, if the image comes from 'recents', 'gallery' or what ever. So I extract the image ID first before looking it up.

One easy and best method copy file to the real path and then get their path I checked it 10 devices on android API-16 to API-30 working fine.

@Nullable
public static String createCopyAndReturnRealPath(
       @NonNull Context context, @NonNull Uri uri) {
    final ContentResolver contentResolver = context.getContentResolver();
    if (contentResolver == null)
        return null;

    // Create file path inside app's data dir
    String filePath = context.getApplicationInfo().dataDir + File.separator + "temp_file";
    File file = new File(filePath);
    try {
        InputStream inputStream = contentResolver.openInputStream(uri);
        if (inputStream == null)
            return null;
        OutputStream outputStream = new FileOutputStream(file);
        byte[] buf = new byte[1024];
        int len;
        while ((len = inputStream.read(buf)) > 0)
            outputStream.write(buf, 0, len);
        outputStream.close();
        inputStream.close();
    } catch (IOException ignore) {
        return null;
    }
    return file.getAbsolutePath();
}