Select multiple images from android gallery

Question

So basically what i am trying to achieve is opening the Gallery in Android and let the user select multiple images. Now this question has been asked frequently but i'm not satisfied with the answers. Mainly because i found something interesting in de docs in my IDE (i come back on this later) and thereby i don't want to use a custom adapter but just the vanilla one.

Now my code for selecting one image is:

Intent intent = new Intent();
intent.setType("image/*");
intent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_GET_CONTENT);
startActivityForResult(Intent.createChooser(intent,"Select Picture"), 1);

Now People on SO and other websites wil tell you you have 2 options:

1) Do not use ACTION_GET_CONTENT but ACTION_SEND_MULTIPLE instead.
This one doesn't work. This one is according to the docs for sending files and not retrieving and that's exactly what it does. When using ACTION_SEND_MULTIPLE i got a window opened at my device where i have to select an application to send my data to. That's not what i want, so i wonder how people got this achieved with this solution.. Do i miss something?

2) Implement an custom Gallery. Now this is my last option i will consider because imho it's not what i am searching for because i have to style it myself AND why the heck you just can't select multiple images in the vanilla gallery?

There must be an option for this.. Now the interesting thing what i'v found is this:
I found this in the docs description of ACTION_GET_CONTENT.

If the caller can handle multiple returned items (the user performing multiple selection), then it can specify EXTRA_ALLOW_MULTIPLE to indicate this.

This is pretty interesting. Here they are referring it to the use case where a user can select multiple items?

Later on they say in the docs:

You may use EXTRA_ALLOW_MULTIPLE to allow the user to select multiple items.

So this is pretty obvious right? This is what i need. But my following question is: Where can i put this EXTRA_ALLOW_MULTIPLE? The sad thing is that i can't find this no where in the developers.android guide and also is this not defined as a constant in the INTENT class.

Anybody can help me out with this EXTRA_ALLOW_MULTIPLE?

Answer 1

The EXTRA_ALLOW_MULTIPLE option is set on the intent through the Intent.putExtra() method:

intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_ALLOW_MULTIPLE, true);

Your code above should look like this:

Intent intent = new Intent();
intent.setType("image/*");
intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_ALLOW_MULTIPLE, true);
intent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_GET_CONTENT);
startActivityForResult(Intent.createChooser(intent,"Select Picture"), 1);

Note: the EXTRA_ALLOW_MULTIPLE option is only available in Android API 18 and higher.

Answer 2

Smart android gallery with multiple image selection action.

Check the demo on my blog

Firstly make button for action and you can use it for single/multiple

For Single image selection:- - luminous.ACTION_PICK for choosing single image.

For Multiple image selection:- - luminous.ACTION_MULTIPLE_PICK for choosing multiple image.

MainActivity.java

// For single image
Intent i = new Intent(Action.ACTION_PICK);
startActivityForResult(i, 100);

// For multiple images
Intent i = new Intent(Action.ACTION_MULTIPLE_PICK);
startActivityForResult(i, 200);

@Override
    protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
        super.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultCode, data);

        if (requestCode == 100 && resultCode == Activity.RESULT_OK) {
            adapter.clear();

            viewSwitcher.setDisplayedChild(1);
            String single_path = data.getStringExtra("single_path");
            imageLoader.displayImage("file://" + single_path, imgSinglePick);

        } else if (requestCode == 200 && resultCode == Activity.RESULT_OK) {
            String[] all_path = data.getStringArrayExtra("all_path");

            ArrayList<CustomGallery> dataT = new ArrayList<CustomGallery>();

            for (String string : all_path) {
                CustomGallery item = new CustomGallery();
                item.sdcardPath = string;

                dataT.add(item);
            }

            viewSwitcher.setDisplayedChild(0);
            adapter.addAll(dataT);
        }
    }

In AndroidManifest.xml

<activity android:name="CustomGalleryActivity" >
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="luminous.ACTION_PICK" />
                <action android:name="luminous.ACTION_MULTIPLE_PICK" />

                <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
            </intent-filter>
 </activity>

Answer 3

Define these variables in the class:

int PICK_IMAGE_MULTIPLE = 1; 
String imageEncoded;    
List<String> imagesEncodedList;

Let's Assume that onClick on a button it should open gallery to select images

 Intent intent = new Intent();
 intent.setType("image/*");
 intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_ALLOW_MULTIPLE, true);
 intent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_GET_CONTENT);
 startActivityForResult(Intent.createChooser(intent,"Select Picture"), PICK_IMAGE_MULTIPLE);

Then you should override onActivityResult Method

@Override
protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
    try {
        // When an Image is picked
        if (requestCode == PICK_IMAGE_MULTIPLE && resultCode == RESULT_OK
                    && null != data) {
            // Get the Image from data

            String[] filePathColumn = { MediaStore.Images.Media.DATA };
            imagesEncodedList = new ArrayList<String>();
            if(data.getData()!=null){

                Uri mImageUri=data.getData();

                // Get the cursor
                Cursor cursor = getContentResolver().query(mImageUri,
                            filePathColumn, null, null, null);
                // Move to first row
                cursor.moveToFirst();

                int columnIndex = cursor.getColumnIndex(filePathColumn[0]);
                imageEncoded  = cursor.getString(columnIndex);
                cursor.close();

            } else {
                if (data.getClipData() != null) {
                    ClipData mClipData = data.getClipData();
                    ArrayList<Uri> mArrayUri = new ArrayList<Uri>();
                    for (int i = 0; i < mClipData.getItemCount(); i++) {

                        ClipData.Item item = mClipData.getItemAt(i);
                        Uri uri = item.getUri();
                        mArrayUri.add(uri);
                        // Get the cursor
                        Cursor cursor = getContentResolver().query(uri, filePathColumn, null, null, null);
                        // Move to first row
                        cursor.moveToFirst();

                        int columnIndex = cursor.getColumnIndex(filePathColumn[0]);
                        imageEncoded  = cursor.getString(columnIndex);
                        imagesEncodedList.add(imageEncoded);
                        cursor.close();

                    }
                    Log.v("LOG_TAG", "Selected Images" + mArrayUri.size());
                }
            }
        } else {
            Toast.makeText(this, "You haven't picked Image",
                        Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
        }
    } catch (Exception e) {
        Toast.makeText(this, "Something went wrong", Toast.LENGTH_LONG)
                    .show();
    }

    super.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultCode, data);
}

NOTE THAT: the gallery doesn't give you the ability to select multi-images so we here open all images studio that you can select multi-images from them. and don't forget to add the permissions to your manifest

VERY IMPORTANT: getData(); to get one single image and I've stored it here in imageEncoded String if the user select multi-images then they should be stored in the list

So you have to check which is null to use the other

Wish you have a nice try and to others