Android: How to search files on sd card?

Question

How can I search files on my sd-card given an entered string?

I'd like to search for "test" and want to get a list with all files that contain in the name the string "test":

testfile.txt

filetest.jpg

thisisatestfile.xml

etc.

Answer 1

You can use ListFiles() of Apache Commons IO, passing a RegexFileFilter FileFilter.

Example using Commons IO jar library in your Android project :

Collection<File> files = FileUtils.listFiles(
                            Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory(),
                            new RegexFileFilter(".*test.*"),
                            TrueFileFilter.TRUE);

for(File f : files){
  //---do something---
}

Also, run this code in a separate thread, consider using AsyncTask.

Answer 2

1. you will need to get the top-most directory you want to search. Because, if you start search from / (root), it will waste too much resources. Best start from /sdcard (or whatever it is that top user data directory)
2. you will loop through all of those directory beneath it, preferably, recursive.
3. store each file name that match your search criteria
4. upon finishing, do whatever you want to do with the result.