How to save an image picked from a UIImagePickerController in Swift?

Question

I\'m building an app where I let the user to pick an image from its photo library. I was using this code to save it.

func imagePickerController(picker: UIIma         


        

Answer 1

You can save and retrieve it using NSUserDefaults:

//Save image
let img = UIImage() //Change to be from UIPicker
let data = UIImagePNGRepresentation(img)
NSUserDefaults.standardUserDefaults().setObject(data, forKey: "myImageKey")
NSUserDefaults.standardUserDefaults().synchronize()

//Get image
if let imgData = NSUserDefaults.standardUserDefaults().objectForKey("myImageKey") as? NSData {
    let retrievedImg = UIImage(data: imgData)
}

Or you can read / write to file, if you prefer:

//Save image
let img = UIImage() //Change to be from UIPicker
let data = UIImagePNGRepresentation(img)!
do {
    let documentsPath = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(.DocumentDirectory, .UserDomainMask, true)[0] as String
    try data.writeToFile("\(documentsPath)myImage", options: [])

} catch {
    print("Error")
}

//Get image
do {
    let documentsPath = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(.DocumentDirectory, .UserDomainMask, true)[0] as String
    let readData = try NSData(contentsOfFile: "\(documentsPath)myImage", options: [])
    let retreivedImage = UIImage(data: readData)
}
catch {
    print("Error")
}

Swift 3:

//Save image
let data = UIImagePNGRepresentation(pickedImage)!
do {
    let documentsPath = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(.documentDirectory, .userDomainMask, true)[0] as String
    try data.write(to: URL(string: "\(documentsPath)/myImage")!, options: .atomic)
} catch {
    print("Error")
}

//Get image
do {
    let documentsPath = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(.documentDirectory, .userDomainMask, true)[0] as String
    let readData = try Data(contentsOf: URL(string: "\(documentsPath)/myImage")!)
    let retreivedImage = UIImage(data: readData)
} catch {
    print("Error")
}

Answer 2

There are two ways, one that you are describing but that is quite messy, the one I would suggest you is to take the image, turn into image data and store it in your application locally like in a sqlite database or in an array in user default. However saving that much data in user default is not a good practise. So, I would go with store it locally and I won't do it with messy sqlite codes, rather I would do it with core data.

class AddImageViewController: UIViewController, UIImagePickerControllerDelegate, UINavigationControllerDelegate {

    @IBOutlet var popUpThePickerButton: UIButton! //click on this button to appear the imagePicker
    @IBOutlet var addPictureButton: UIButton! //when this button clicked saveImage method is called and there you save the imageData wherever you want

    let picker = UIImagePickerController()
    var selectedImage : UIImage!

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        picker.delegate = self
    }

    override func didReceiveMemoryWarning() {
        super.didReceiveMemoryWarning()
    }

    // when popUpThePickerButton is clicked
    @IBAction func selectPictureFromPhotos(sender: UIButton) { 
        picker.editing = false
        picker.sourceType = .PhotoLibrary

        presentViewController(picker, animated: true, completion: nil)
    }

    func imagePickerController(picker: UIImagePickerController, didFinishPickingMediaWithInfo info: [String : AnyObject]) {
        self.selectedImage = info[UIImagePickerControllerOriginalImage] as! UIImage 
        dismissViewControllerAnimated(true, completion: nil)
    }

    func imagePickerControllerDidCancel(picker: UIImagePickerController) {
        dismissViewControllerAnimated(true, completion: nil)
    }

// then save this image data in your database and when you want to show that image you can just turn the image data to image again

    @IBAction func saveImage(sender: UIButton) {
        let imageData = UIImagePNGRepresentation(self.selectedImage)
        //save this image data in database
    }
}