Xamarin media plugin get android image path

Question

I am using the media plugin for xamarin forms (by james montemagno) and the actual taking of the picture and storing it works fine, I have debugged the creation of the image on the emulator and it is stored in

/storage/emulated/0/Android/data/{APPNAME}.Android/files/Pictures/{DIRECTORYNAME}/{IMAGENAME}

however in my app it will get a list of file names from an API I want to check if the image exists in that folder.

The following works fine on IOS

var documentsDirectory = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Personal);
string jpgFilename = System.IO.Path.Combine(documentsDirectory, App.IMAGE_FOLDER_NAME);
jpgFilename = System.IO.Path.Combine(jpgFilename, name);

I have tried the 2 following methods for getting it on android but both are incorrect

var documentsDirectory = System.Environment.GetFolderPath(System.Environment.SpecialFolder.Personal);
string jpgFilename = System.IO.Path.Combine(documentsDirectory, App.IMAGE_FOLDER_NAME);
jpgFilename = System.IO.Path.Combine(jpgFilename, name);
Java.IO.File dir = Android.OS.Environment.GetExternalStoragePublicDirectory(Android.OS.Environment.DataDirectory + "/" + App.IMAGE_FOLDER_NAME + "/" + name);

dir ends up as /storage/emulated/0/data/{DIRECTORY}/{IMAGENAME}

jpgFileName ends up as /data/data/{APPNAME}.Android/files/{DIRECTORYNAME}/{IMAGENAME}

I dont want to hardcode anything in the paths but neither of these are right. I could not find anything in the GIT documentation for getting the file path except by looking at the path of the file created when taking a picture

Answer 1

The problem

I had the same kind of issue with Xamarin Media Plugin. For me, the problem is:

• we don't really know where the plugin save the picture on android.

After reading all documentation I found, I just noted this:

... When your user takes a photo it will still store temporary data, but also if needed make a copy to the public gallery (based on platform). In the MediaFile you will now see a AlbumPath that you can query as well.

(from: Github plugin page)

• so you can save your photo to your phone gallery (it will be public) but the path is known.
• and we don't know what means "store the temporary data".

Solution

After investigating on how/where an app can store data, I found where the plugin stores photos on Android >> so I can generate back the full file names

In your Android app, the base path you are looking for is:

var basePath = Android.App.Application.Context.GetExternalFilesDir(null).AbsolutePath

It references your app's external private folder. It looks like that:

/storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.mycompany.myapp/files

So finally to get your full file's path:

var fullPath = basePath + {DIRECTORYNAME} + {FILENAME};

I suggest you to make a dependency service, for instance 'ILocalFileService', that will expose this 'base path' property.

Please let me know if it works for you !