Getting the Absolute File Path from Content URI for searched images

Question

I am trying to share images from other applications to my application using implicit intent ACTION_SEND.

While sharing search images from chrome browser, app receives intent with a Content URI like this: content://com.android.chrome.FileProvider/images/screenshot/1457448067808912906311.jpg

How can I fetch file path from this type of Content URI? All other apps like Facebook, Google+ are doing it. I am using FileChooser for getting file path of other types of Content URIs (eg. from Gallery).

Tried looking everywhere, without much help. Can someone suggest how to work with these Content URIs?

Answer 1

If you absolutely need a local copy of the file, you are going to need to open the InputStream copy the contents to a local file that you know the path to and then go from there. Sidenote: Guava's ByteStreams#copy is an easy way to accomplish this.

Of course this file is no longer backed by the original Uri source, so I don't think this is what you want. Instead, you should work with the Uri's intended API. Take a look at the Storage Access Framework

Edit

Here is how you can get an InputStream from your Uri

InputStream inputStream = getContentResolver().openInputStream(uri);

Answer 2

How can I fetch file path from this type of Content URI?

You don't, as there does not have to be a file at all behind the Uri, let alone one that you can access. That Uri might point to:

• A local file on external storage
• A local file on internal storage for the other app
• A local file on removable storage
• A local file that is encrypted and needs to be decrypted on the fly
• A stream of bytes held in a BLOB column in a database
• A piece of content that needs to be downloaded by the other app first
• ...and so on

All other apps like Facebook, Google+ are doing it

No, they are not. They are using ContentResolver and:

• openInputStream() to read in the bytes associated with the content
• getType() to get the MIME type associated with the content
• query() and the OpenableColumns to get the size and display name associated with the content