Getting the Absolute File Path from Content URI for searched images

Question

I am trying to share images from other applications to my application using implicit intent ACTION_SEND.

While sharing search images from chrome browser, app receiv

Answer 1

How can I fetch file path from this type of Content URI?

You don't, as there does not have to be a file at all behind the Uri, let alone one that you can access. That Uri might point to:

• A local file on external storage
• A local file on internal storage for the other app
• A local file on removable storage
• A local file that is encrypted and needs to be decrypted on the fly
• A stream of bytes held in a BLOB column in a database
• A piece of content that needs to be downloaded by the other app first
• ...and so on

All other apps like Facebook, Google+ are doing it

No, they are not. They are using ContentResolver and:

• openInputStream() to read in the bytes associated with the content
• getType() to get the MIME type associated with the content
• query() and the OpenableColumns to get the size and display name associated with the content

Answer 2

If you absolutely need a local copy of the file, you are going to need to open the InputStream copy the contents to a local file that you know the path to and then go from there. Sidenote: Guava's ByteStreams#copy is an easy way to accomplish this.

Of course this file is no longer backed by the original Uri source, so I don't think this is what you want. Instead, you should work with the Uri's intended API. Take a look at the Storage Access Framework

Edit

Here is how you can get an InputStream from your Uri

InputStream inputStream = getContentResolver().openInputStream(uri);