Find location of a removable SD card

Question

Is there an universal way to find the location of an external SD card?

Please, do not be confused with External Storage.

Environment.getExternalStorage

Answer 1

If you look at the source code for android.os.Environment you will see that Android relies heavily on environment variables for paths. You can use the "SECONDARY_STORAGE" environment variable to find the path to the removable sd card.

/**
 * Get a file using an environmental variable.
 *
 * @param variableName
 *         The Environment variable name.
 * @param paths
 *         Any paths to the file if the Environment variable was not found.
 * @return the File or {@code null} if the File could not be located.
 */
private static File getDirectory(String variableName, String... paths) {
    String path = System.getenv(variableName);
    if (!TextUtils.isEmpty(path)) {
        if (path.contains(":")) {
            for (String _path : path.split(":")) {
                File file = new File(_path);
                if (file.exists()) {
                    return file;
                }
            }
        } else {
            File file = new File(path);
            if (file.exists()) {
                return file;
            }
        }
    }
    if (paths != null && paths.length > 0) {
        for (String _path : paths) {
            File file = new File(_path);
            if (file.exists()) {
                return file;
            }
        }
    }
    return null;
}

Example usage:

public static final File REMOVABLE_STORAGE = getDirectory("SECONDARY_STORAGE");