Image, saved to sdcard, doesn't appear in Android's Gallery app

Question

I save an image to the sdcard and it doesn't appear in the Gallery application until I pull off the sdcard and return it back.

Do you have any idea why is it so?

Seems like the Gallery application has some cache that isn't updated on file save...

Actually, I also want to open the just-saved image in Gallery application and have no success with that
this is my question about this issue.

Answer 1

The system scans the SD card when it is mounted to find any new image (and other) files. If you are programmatically adding a file, then you can use this class:

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/media/MediaScannerConnection.html

Answer 2

Here is the code for the MediaScannerConnection:

MyMediaConnectorClient client = new MyMediaConnectorClient(newfile);
MediaScannerConnection scanner = new MediaScannerConnection(context, client);
client.setScanner(scanner);
scanner.connect();

newfile is the File object of your new/saved file.

Answer 3

09-26 14:47:44.074: ERROR/MediaScannerService(10288): Failed to delete file /data/data/com.android.providers.media/pause_scan

I get this error when I try to call scanner.scanFile( szFinalFileName, null );

Any ideas?

Answer 4

My answer to the original question and to anyone else that may have this problem:

I was having this same problem, images in my app that people saved to the SD card were not showing up in their Gallery immediately. After some searching I found this one line of code inserted after my 'save to sdcard' code that fixed the problem:

sendBroadcast(new Intent(Intent.ACTION_MEDIA_MOUNTED, Uri.parse("file://"+ Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory())));

Answer 5

You can also add an Image to the Media Gallery by intent, have a look at the example code to see how it is done:

ContentValues image = new ContentValues();

image.put(Images.Media.TITLE, imageTitle);
image.put(Images.Media.DISPLAY_NAME, imageDisplayName);
image.put(Images.Media.DESCRIPTION, imageDescription);
image.put(Images.Media.DATE_ADDED, dateTaken);
image.put(Images.Media.DATE_TAKEN, dateTaken);
image.put(Images.Media.DATE_MODIFIED, dateTaken);
image.put(Images.Media.MIME_TYPE, "image/png");
image.put(Images.Media.ORIENTATION, 0);

 File parent = imageFile.getParentFile();
 String path = parent.toString().toLowerCase();
 String name = parent.getName().toLowerCase();
 image.put(Images.ImageColumns.BUCKET_ID, path.hashCode());
 image.put(Images.ImageColumns.BUCKET_DISPLAY_NAME, name);
 image.put(Images.Media.SIZE, imageFile.length());

 image.put(DATA_CONSTANT, imageFile.getAbsolutePath());

 Uri result = context.getContentResolver().insert(MediaStore.Images.Media.EXTERNAL_CONTENT_URI, image);