Sharing an image with Google+ app using Intent.ACTION_SEND and Intent.EXTRA_STREAM

Question

My app generates images that a user can save or share with others. The code below works for most apps: Messenger, Facebook, Dropbox, email, etc. Meaning, the image is load

Answer 1

Thanks for raising this question!

Yes it seems that Google+ only accepts media from content providers (content:// uris), not file:// uris. So we need to put the image into MediaStore first. An easier way to do this is:

MediaStore.Images.Media.insertImage(context.getContentResolver(), tmpFile.getAbsolutePath(), tmpFile.getName(), null);

Answer 2

The reason why you are getting this error is because of "on the sd card" is NOT "on your device".

A discussion about this issue can be found here: https://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/forum/#!topic/google-plus-discuss/pdlOTM8JEXg/discussion

The workaround via the MediaStore seems to be the only solution until Google updates the Google+ app with a fix.

Update: The solution mentioned above only works if you want to share an image a single time. If you call ContentResolver.insert(...) multiple times, you will end up with the image showing up multiple times in your gallery. I came up with the following solution that tries to get the existing id of the image and if it doesn't exist, you can insert it...

Cursor c = getActivity().getContentResolver()
            .query(Images.Media.EXTERNAL_CONTENT_URI,
                    null,
                    Images.Media.DATA + "=?",
                    new String[] { filePath }, null);
    if (c.getCount() > 0 && c.moveToFirst()) {
        Uri shareUri = Uri.withAppendedPath(
                Images.Media.EXTERNAL_CONTENT_URI,
                ""
                        + c.getInt(c
                                .getColumnIndex(Images.Media._ID)));
        c.close();

        startActivity(Intent.createChooser(
                new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND)
                        .putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_STREAM,
                                shareUri).setType(
                                   "image/*"), ""));
    } else {
    // ContentResolver.insert(...) and use that uri...
    }

Answer 3

Great catch! You can specify the MediaStore Uri (which looks like content://media/external/images/media/42) instead of the absolute path on the file system.

Example:

public class MyActivity extends Activity {
  ...
  static final int IMAGE_REQUEST = 0;

  protected void pickImage() {
    Intent intent = new Intent(android.provider.MediaStore.ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE);
    startActivityForResult(intent, IMAGE_REQUEST);
  }

  protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
    if (requestCode == IMAGE_REQUEST) {
      Uri uri = data.getData();

      Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND);
      intent.setType("image/png");
      // uri looks like content://media/external/images/media/42
      intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_STREAM, uri);
      startActivity(Intent.createChooser(intent , "Share"));
    }
  }
}