How do you write to a folder on an SD card in Android?

Question

I am using the following code to download a file from my server then write it to the root directory of the SD card, it all works fine:

package com.downloader;         


        

Answer 1

Add Permission to Android Manifest

Add this WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission to your applications manifest.

Check availability of external storage

You should always check for availability first. A snippet from the official android documentation on external storage.

boolean mExternalStorageAvailable = false;
boolean mExternalStorageWriteable = false;
String state = Environment.getExternalStorageState();

if (Environment.MEDIA_MOUNTED.equals(state)) {
    // We can read and write the media
    mExternalStorageAvailable = mExternalStorageWriteable = true;
} else if (Environment.MEDIA_MOUNTED_READ_ONLY.equals(state)) {
    // We can only read the media
    mExternalStorageAvailable = true;
    mExternalStorageWriteable = false;
} else {
    // Something else is wrong. It may be one of many other states, but all we need
    //  to know is we can neither read nor write
    mExternalStorageAvailable = mExternalStorageWriteable = false;
}

Use a Filewriter

At last but not least forget about the FileOutputStream and use a FileWriter instead. More information on that class form the FileWriter javadoc. You'll might want to add some more error handling here to inform the user.

// get external storage file reference
FileWriter writer = new FileWriter(getExternalStorageDirectory()); 
// Writes the content to the file
writer.write("This\n is\n an\n example\n"); 
writer.flush();
writer.close();