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

/sdcard => Internal Storage (It's a symlink but should work)

/mnt/extSdCard => External Sdcard

This is for Samsung Galaxy S3

You can probably bank on this being true for most...double check however!

Answer 2

Like Richard I also use /proc/mounts file to get the list of available storage options

public class StorageUtils {

    private static final String TAG = "StorageUtils";

    public static class StorageInfo {

        public final String path;
        public final boolean internal;
        public final boolean readonly;
        public final int display_number;

        StorageInfo(String path, boolean internal, boolean readonly, int display_number) {
            this.path = path;
            this.internal = internal;
            this.readonly = readonly;
            this.display_number = display_number;
        }

        public String getDisplayName() {
            StringBuilder res = new StringBuilder();
            if (internal) {
                res.append("Internal SD card");
            } else if (display_number > 1) {
                res.append("SD card " + display_number);
            } else {
                res.append("SD card");
            }
            if (readonly) {
                res.append(" (Read only)");
            }
            return res.toString();
        }
    }

    public static List<StorageInfo> getStorageList() {

        List<StorageInfo> list = new ArrayList<StorageInfo>();
        String def_path = Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory().getPath();
        boolean def_path_internal = !Environment.isExternalStorageRemovable();
        String def_path_state = Environment.getExternalStorageState();
        boolean def_path_available = def_path_state.equals(Environment.MEDIA_MOUNTED)
                                    || def_path_state.equals(Environment.MEDIA_MOUNTED_READ_ONLY);
        boolean def_path_readonly = Environment.getExternalStorageState().equals(Environment.MEDIA_MOUNTED_READ_ONLY);
        BufferedReader buf_reader = null;
        try {
            HashSet<String> paths = new HashSet<String>();
            buf_reader = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("/proc/mounts"));
            String line;
            int cur_display_number = 1;
            Log.d(TAG, "/proc/mounts");
            while ((line = buf_reader.readLine()) != null) {
                Log.d(TAG, line);
                if (line.contains("vfat") || line.contains("/mnt")) {
                    StringTokenizer tokens = new StringTokenizer(line, " ");
                    String unused = tokens.nextToken(); //device
                    String mount_point = tokens.nextToken(); //mount point
                    if (paths.contains(mount_point)) {
                        continue;
                    }
                    unused = tokens.nextToken(); //file system
                    List<String> flags = Arrays.asList(tokens.nextToken().split(",")); //flags
                    boolean readonly = flags.contains("ro");

                    if (mount_point.equals(def_path)) {
                        paths.add(def_path);
                        list.add(0, new StorageInfo(def_path, def_path_internal, readonly, -1));
                    } else if (line.contains("/dev/block/vold")) {
                        if (!line.contains("/mnt/secure")
                            && !line.contains("/mnt/asec")
                            && !line.contains("/mnt/obb")
                            && !line.contains("/dev/mapper")
                            && !line.contains("tmpfs")) {
                            paths.add(mount_point);
                            list.add(new StorageInfo(mount_point, false, readonly, cur_display_number++));
                        }
                    }
                }
            }

            if (!paths.contains(def_path) && def_path_available) {
                list.add(0, new StorageInfo(def_path, def_path_internal, def_path_readonly, -1));
            }

        } catch (FileNotFoundException ex) {
            ex.printStackTrace();
        } catch (IOException ex) {
            ex.printStackTrace();
        } finally {
            if (buf_reader != null) {
                try {
                    buf_reader.close();
                } catch (IOException ex) {}
            }
        }
        return list;
    }    
}

Answer 3

It is possible to find where any additional SD cards are mounted by reading /proc/mounts (standard Linux file) and cross-checking against vold data (/system/etc/vold.conf). And note, that the location returned by Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory() may not appear in vold configuration (in some devices it's internal storage that cannot be unmounted), but still has to be included in the list. However we didn't find a good way to describe them to the user.

Answer 4

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");