Android Gallery on Android 4.4 (KitKat) returns different URI for Intent.ACTION_GET_CONTENT

Question

Before KitKat (or before the new Gallery) the Intent.ACTION_GET_CONTENT returned a URI like this

content://media/external/images/media/39

Answer 1

For those who is still using @Paul Burke's code with Android SDK version 23 and above, if your project met the error saying that you are missing EXTERNAL_PERMISSION, and you are very sure you have already added user-permission in your AndroidManifest.xml file. That's because you may in Android API 23 or above and Google make it necessary to guarantee permission again while you make the action to access the file in runtime.

That means: If your SDK version is 23 or above, you are asked for READ & WRITE permission while you are selecting the picture file and want to know the URI of it.

And following is my code, in addition to Paul Burke's solution. I add these code and my project start to work fine.

private static final int REQUEST_EXTERNAL_STORAGE = 1;
private static final String[] PERMISSINOS_STORAGE = {
    Manifest.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE,
    Manifest.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE
};

public static void verifyStoragePermissions(Activity activity) {
    int permission = ActivityCompat.checkSelfPermission(activity, Manifest.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE);

    if (permission != PackageManager.PERMISSION_GRANTED) {
        ActivityCompat.requestPermissions(
                activity,
                PERMISSINOS_STORAGE,
                REQUEST_EXTERNAL_STORAGE
        );
    }
}

And in your activity&fragment where you are asking for the URI:

private void pickPhotoFromGallery() {

    CompatUtils.verifyStoragePermissions(this);
    Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_GET_CONTENT);
    intent.setType("image/*");
    // startActivityForResult(intent, REQUEST_PHOTO_LIBRARY);
    startActivityForResult(Intent.createChooser(intent, "选择照片"),
            REQUEST_PHOTO_LIBRARY);
}

In my case, CompatUtils.java is where I define the verifyStoragePermissions method (as static type so I can call it within other activity).

Also it should make more sense if you make an if state first to see whether the current SDK version is above 23 or not before you call the verifyStoragePermissions method.