Thuat Nguyen

How to save file to external storage in Android 10 and Above

14 Aug 2021

Since Android 10, Environment.getExternalStoragePublicDirectory method was deprecated, then you was unable access public external storage directory directly to save your file. This short post will give a solution to solve it.

As a user, I would like to download a file (image, pdf, etc.) from Internet and save to public Downloads folder in device, then the code below works like a charm in Android target API 28.

fun saveFileToExternalStorage(url: String, fileName: String): Completable {
    return Completable.fromCallable {
        val target = File(
            Environment.getExternalStoragePublicDirectory(Environment.DIRECTORY_DOWNLOADS),
            fileName
        )
        URL(url).openStream().use { input ->
            FileOutputStream(target).use { output ->
                input.copyTo(output)
            }
        }
    }
}

However, if you run it in Android API 29+ (Android 10 and above), it will throw the exception:

java.io.FileNotFoundException: /storage/emulated/0/Download/your_file_name: open failed: EACCES (Permission denied)

Fortunately, we can achieve the same result by using MediaStore approach.

@RequiresApi(Build.VERSION_CODES.Q)
private fun saveFileUsingMediaStore(context: Context, url: String, fileName: String) {
    val contentValues = ContentValues().apply {
        put(MediaStore.MediaColumns.DISPLAY_NAME, fileName)
        put(MediaStore.MediaColumns.MIME_TYPE, your_mime_type)
        put(MediaStore.MediaColumns.RELATIVE_PATH, Environment.DIRECTORY_DOWNLOADS)
    }
    val resolver = context.contentResolver
    val uri = resolver.insert(MediaStore.Downloads.EXTERNAL_CONTENT_URI, contentValues)
    if (uri != null) {
        URL(url).openStream().use { input ->
            resolver.openOutputStream(uri).use { output ->
                input.copyTo(output!!, DEFAULT_BUFFER_SIZE)
            }
        }
    } 
}

Note that you have to input right value of MIME_TYPE which depends on your file. Each file type have corresponding MIME type, for instance:

  • .pdf -> application/pdf
  • .png ->image/png
  • .epub -> application/epub+zip

You can get more information about MIME types at here.

Happy reading!

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