Get/pick an image from Android's built-in Gall

Question

I am trying to open an image / picture in the Gallery built-in app from inside my application.

I have a URI of the picture (the picture is located on the SD card).

Do you have any suggestions?

Answer 1

---

Retrieve a specific type of file

This example will get a copy of the image.

static final int REQUEST_IMAGE_GET = 1;

public void selectImage() {
    Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_GET_CONTENT);
    intent.setType("image/*");
    if (intent.resolveActivity(getPackageManager()) != null) {
        startActivityForResult(intent, REQUEST_IMAGE_GET);
    }
}

@Override
protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
    if (requestCode == REQUEST_IMAGE_GET && resultCode == RESULT_OK) {
        Bitmap thumbnail = data.getParcelable("data");
        Uri fullPhotoUri = data.getData();
        // Do work with photo saved at fullPhotoUri
        ...
    }
}

Open a specific type of file

When running on 4.4 or higher, you request to open a file that's managed by another app

static final int REQUEST_IMAGE_OPEN = 1;

public void selectImage() {
    Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_OPEN_DOCUMENT);
    intent.setType("image/*");
    intent.addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_OPENABLE);
    // Only the system receives the ACTION_OPEN_DOCUMENT, so no need to test.
    startActivityForResult(intent, REQUEST_IMAGE_OPEN);
}

@Override
protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
    if (requestCode == REQUEST_IMAGE_OPEN && resultCode == RESULT_OK) {
        Uri fullPhotoUri = data.getData();
        // Do work with full size photo saved at fullPhotoUri
        ...
    }
}

Original source

Answer 2

There are two useful tutorials about image picker with downloadable source code here:

How to Create Android Image Picker

How to Select and Crop Image on Android

However, the app will be forced to close sometime, you can fix it by adding android:configChanges attribute into main activity in Manifest file like as:

<activity android:name=".MainActivity"
                  android:label="@string/app_name" android:configChanges="keyboardHidden|orientation" >

It seems that the camera API lost control with orientation so this will help it. :)

Answer 3

Below solution work for 2.3(Gingerbread)-4.4(Kitkat), 5.0(Lollipop) and 6.0(Marshmallow) also:-

Step 1 Code for opening the gallery to select pics:

public static final int PICK_IMAGE = 1;
private void takePictureFromGalleryOrAnyOtherFolder() 
{
    Intent intent = new Intent();
    intent.setType("image/*");
    intent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_GET_CONTENT);
    startActivityForResult(Intent.createChooser(intent, "Select Picture"), PICK_IMAGE);
}

Step 2 Code for getting data in onActivityResult:

 @Override
 protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
            super.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultCode, data);
            if (resultCode == Activity.RESULT_OK) {
               if (requestCode == PICK_IMAGE) {
                    Uri selectedImageUri = data.getData();
                    String imagePath = getRealPathFromURI(selectedImageUri);
                   //Now you have imagePath do whatever you want to do now
                 }//end of inner if
             }//end of outer if
      }

 public String getRealPathFromURI(Uri contentUri) {
        //Uri contentUri = Uri.parse(contentURI);

        String[] projection = { MediaStore.Images.Media.DATA };
        Cursor cursor = null;
        try {
            if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT > 19) {
                // Will return "image:x*"
                String wholeID = DocumentsContract.getDocumentId(contentUri);
                // Split at colon, use second item in the array
                String id = wholeID.split(":")[1];
                // where id is equal to
                String sel = MediaStore.Images.Media._ID + "=?";

                cursor = context.getContentResolver().query(
                        MediaStore.Images.Media.EXTERNAL_CONTENT_URI,
                        projection, sel, new String[] { id }, null);
            } else {
                cursor = context.getContentResolver().query(contentUri,
                        projection, null, null, null);
            }
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        String path = null;
        try {
            int column_index = cursor
                    .getColumnIndex(MediaStore.Images.Media.DATA);
            cursor.moveToFirst();
            path = cursor.getString(column_index).toString();
            cursor.close();
        } catch (NullPointerException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        return path;
    }

Answer 4

Just in case it helps; I do this to get the Bitmap:

InputStream is = context.getContentResolver().openInputStream(imageUri);
Bitmap bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(is);

Answer 5

this is my revisit to this topic, gathering all the information here, plus from other relevant stack overflow questions. It returns images from some provider, while handling out-of-memory conditions and image rotation. It supports gallery, picasa and file managers, like drop box. Usage is simple: as input, the constructor receives the content resolver and the uri. The output is the final bitmap.

/**
 * Creates resized images without exploding memory. Uses the method described in android
 * documentation concerning bitmap allocation, which is to subsample the image to a smaller size,
 * close to some expected size. This is required because the android standard library is unable to
 * create a reduced size image from an image file using memory comparable to the final size (and
 * loading a full sized multi-megapixel picture for processing may exceed application memory budget).
 */

public class UserPicture {
    static int MAX_WIDTH = 600;
    static int MAX_HEIGHT = 800;
    Uri uri;
    ContentResolver resolver;
    String path;
    Matrix orientation;
    int storedHeight;
    int storedWidth;

    public UserPicture(Uri uri, ContentResolver resolver) {
        this.uri = uri;
        this.resolver = resolver;
    }

    private boolean getInformation() throws IOException {
        if (getInformationFromMediaDatabase())
            return true;

        if (getInformationFromFileSystem())
            return true;

        return false;
    }

    /* Support for gallery apps and remote ("picasa") images */
    private boolean getInformationFromMediaDatabase() {
        String[] fields = { Media.DATA, ImageColumns.ORIENTATION };
        Cursor cursor = resolver.query(uri, fields, null, null, null);

        if (cursor == null)
            return false;

        cursor.moveToFirst();
        path = cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex(Media.DATA));
        int orientation = cursor.getInt(cursor.getColumnIndex(ImageColumns.ORIENTATION));
        this.orientation = new Matrix();
        this.orientation.setRotate(orientation);
        cursor.close();

        return true;
    }

    /* Support for file managers and dropbox */
    private boolean getInformationFromFileSystem() throws IOException {
        path = uri.getPath();

        if (path == null)
            return false;

        ExifInterface exif = new ExifInterface(path);
        int orientation = exif.getAttributeInt(ExifInterface.TAG_ORIENTATION,
                                               ExifInterface.ORIENTATION_NORMAL);

        this.orientation = new Matrix();
        switch(orientation) {
            case ExifInterface.ORIENTATION_NORMAL:
                /* Identity matrix */
                break;
            case ExifInterface.ORIENTATION_FLIP_HORIZONTAL:
                this.orientation.setScale(-1, 1);
                break;
            case ExifInterface.ORIENTATION_ROTATE_180:
                this.orientation.setRotate(180);
                break;
            case ExifInterface.ORIENTATION_FLIP_VERTICAL:
                this.orientation.setScale(1, -1);
                break;
            case ExifInterface.ORIENTATION_TRANSPOSE:
                this.orientation.setRotate(90);
                this.orientation.postScale(-1, 1);
                break;
            case ExifInterface.ORIENTATION_ROTATE_90:
                this.orientation.setRotate(90);
                break;
            case ExifInterface.ORIENTATION_TRANSVERSE:
                this.orientation.setRotate(-90);
                this.orientation.postScale(-1, 1);
                break;
            case ExifInterface.ORIENTATION_ROTATE_270:
                this.orientation.setRotate(-90);
                break;
        }

        return true;
    }

    private boolean getStoredDimensions() throws IOException {
        InputStream input = resolver.openInputStream(uri);
        Options options = new Options();
        options.inJustDecodeBounds = true;
        BitmapFactory.decodeStream(resolver.openInputStream(uri), null, options);

        /* The input stream could be reset instead of closed and reopened if it were possible
           to reliably wrap the input stream on a buffered stream, but it's not possible because
           decodeStream() places an upper read limit of 1024 bytes for a reset to be made (it calls
           mark(1024) on the stream). */
        input.close();

        if (options.outHeight <= 0 || options.outWidth <= 0)
            return false;

        storedHeight = options.outHeight;
        storedWidth = options.outWidth;

        return true;
    }

    public Bitmap getBitmap() throws IOException {
        if (!getInformation())
            throw new FileNotFoundException();

        if (!getStoredDimensions())
            throw new InvalidObjectException(null);

        RectF rect = new RectF(0, 0, storedWidth, storedHeight);
        orientation.mapRect(rect);
        int width = (int)rect.width();
        int height = (int)rect.height();
        int subSample = 1;

        while (width > MAX_WIDTH || height > MAX_HEIGHT) {
            width /= 2;
            height /= 2;
            subSample *= 2;
        }

        if (width == 0 || height == 0)
            throw new InvalidObjectException(null);

        Options options = new Options();
        options.inSampleSize = subSample;
        Bitmap subSampled = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(resolver.openInputStream(uri), null, options);

        Bitmap picture;
        if (!orientation.isIdentity()) {
            picture = Bitmap.createBitmap(subSampled, 0, 0, options.outWidth, options.outHeight,
                                          orientation, false);
            subSampled.recycle();
        } else
            picture = subSampled;

        return picture;
    }
}

References:

• http://developer.android.com/training/displaying-bitmaps/index.html
• Get/pick an image from Android's built-in Gallery app programmatically
• Strange out of memory issue while loading an image to a Bitmap object
• Set image orientation using ExifInterface
• https://gist.github.com/9re/1990019
• how to get bitmap information and then decode bitmap from internet-inputStream?

Answer 6

hcpl's methods work perfectly pre-KitKat, but not working with the DocumentsProvider API. For that just simply follow the official Android tutorial for documentproviders: https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/providers/document-provider.html -> open a document, Bitmap section.

Simply I used hcpl's code and extended it: if the file with the retrieved path to the image throws exception I call this function:

private Bitmap getBitmapFromUri(Uri uri) throws IOException {
        ParcelFileDescriptor parcelFileDescriptor =
             getContentResolver().openFileDescriptor(uri, "r");
        FileDescriptor fileDescriptor = parcelFileDescriptor.getFileDescriptor();
        Bitmap image = BitmapFactory.decodeFileDescriptor(fileDescriptor);
        parcelFileDescriptor.close();
        return image;
}

Tested on Nexus 5.