Android: where are downloaded files saved? [closed]

Question

I am trying to develop a "document manager"

I have the necessity of accessing the files downloaded from the internet, from Gmail, for other mail clients, from other internet sources...

I would like to understand where these files are stored exactly on Android:

1- if there is an SD

2- if there is no SD Card

so that I can show them to the user in my App at any time.

Any help very much appreciated.

Answer 1

Most devices have some form of emulated storage. if they support sd cards they are usually mounted to /sdcard (or some variation of that name) which is usually symlinked to to a directory in /storage like /storage/sdcard0 or /storage/0 sometimes the emulated storage is mounted to /sdcard and the actual path is something like /storage/emulated/legacy. You should be able to use to get the downloads directory. You are best off using the api calls to get directories. Environment.getExternalStoragePublicDirectory(Environment.DIRECTORY_DOWNLOADS);

Since the filesystems and sdcard support varies among devices.

see similar question for more info how to access downloads folder in android?

Usually the DownloadManager handles downloads and the files are then accessed by requesting the file's uri fromthe download manager using a file id to get where file was places which would usually be somewhere in the sdcard/ real or emulated since apps can only read data from certain places on the filesystem outside of their data directory like the sdcard

Answer 2

In my experience all the files which i have downloaded from internet,gmail are stored in

/sdcard/download

on ics

/sdcard/Download

You can access it using

Environment.getExternalStoragePublicDirectory(Environment.DIRECTORY_DOWNLOADS);