In my App I would like to import various document types (video, audio, photo's, pdf and text). I can use UIImagePickerController for the photo's and videos. I can use UIDocumentPickerViewController to get all file types from an iCloud drive - but this does not seem to find any files I have created on this device (and not added to iCloud). I feel like I am missing something fundamental. NSOpenPanel is there for OSX, is there nothing equivalent for iOS?
UIDocumentPickerViewController can only access files in iCloud or a similar service (eg DropBox). There is no way to access files outside your app's sandbox. They must first be moved (or copied) to iCloud.
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I want to write one or multiple mov/mp4 files to iOS Files App but can not find how to do it with UIDocumentInteractionController. Looking for a sample code to copy files to a subfolder of my app in iOS files app using UIDocumentInteractionController. See sample screenshot to understand what I want.
You will first need to create a File Provider extension for your app if you are storing the files remotely.
If they are only being stored locally on device you can achieve this by (in the Info.plist) either setting the UISupportsDocumentBrowser key, or by setting bother the UIFileSharingEnabled and LSSupportsOpeningDocumentsInPlace keys.
As explained in this documentation:
These keys enable other apps to open and edit the contents of your Documents directory in place. Your files also appear in both the Files app and the document browser. For more information, see the UIDocumentBrowserViewController class.
I understand that if I provide the UIFileSharingEnabled and LSSupportsOpeningDocumentsInPlace keys in Info.plist for my iOS app, files in my app's Documents folder are shown in Files.app ("On This iPad") and the documents browser.
Now my question - aside from writing a File Provider extension - is there any way to add an app group's folder or replace the Documents folder with a folder in the app group's folder?
For sharing between my extensions, I save everything in the App Group folder instead of Documents, but then, of course, Files.app doesn't have access to those files, that's why I'm asking.
I tried creating symbolic links from the documents folder to the actual file, and they are shown, but don't work correctly ("file doesn't exist").
I've also created a File Provider extension, but it was rejected by Apple because my extension isn't cloud-backed and was only for local files. According to my reviewer, a File Provider extension must be cloud-storage backed.
Thank you for your help and insights,
-Matt
It's pretty simple: No. :(
We are struggling with the same issue and its simple: You can't participate in the files app (or iTunes File Sharing) if you don't store your files in the Documents folder.
It seems like this is not well thought out. You should not integrate as a file provider unless you are actually providing a file system such as dropbox, at least that's what we've been told at WWDC. On the other side you should support stuff like iMessage extensions, today extensions,... which only are possible if your files are accessible through an app group. But this then automatically breaks the use of the Files.app as well as iTunes Filesharing.
We filed radars for that, any duplicate would help, I guess.
I am writing a simple recorder application which can record/play audio (via. AVFoundation) and save it locally to the iOS device. I've found several sources de
Initially, I would have liked to send out multiple of these saved audio files via email (MessageUI) such as with this simple example: https://gist.github.com/kellyegan/49e3e11fe68b5e6b5360 - though recently I have felt maybe I should forego this in favor of simply saving to the device and allowing the user to send out the file somehow.
Considering this, I feel it might be best to try to save the audio file to a more user-friendly destination. Is there any way I can save these files locally that might allow the user to 'share' them via iOS (outside of my application)? Maybe even to their iTunes library? This seemed promising: iOS - Save audio files to iTunes music library - but looks like the solution provided is actually for saving images to the 'photo album'
When I print the audio file's URL I get something like
'file:///var/mobile/Containers/Data/Application/AA3E5177-A8C8-4FFA-8EBC-85A2A6844A88/Documents/recording-2017-03-06-12-54.m4a'
I am a serious noob w/ Swift 3 and definitely with AVFoundation - I'd really appreciate any and all help/advice. Thanks in advance!
The URL 'file:///var/mobile/Containers/Data/Application/AA3E5177-A8C8-4FFA-8EBC-85A2A6844A88/Documents/recording-2017-03-06-12-54.m4a' may look elaborate to you, but in fact it is totally "user-friendly". It's a file in the app's Documents folder! Nothing could be simpler than that.
The URL in question would never be seen by the user; in fact, it won't even be the same between runs of your app.
Your app can certainly provide interface for the user to select one or more files, and can make them available for sharing out by means of UIActivityViewController or UIDocumentInteractionController.
You might also want to look into UIDocumentPickerViewController or even https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/General/Conceptual/ExtensibilityPG/FileProvider.html
iOS apps are heavily sandboxed. The app's Documents directory (at the path you posted) is the typical place for files like this. You can enable file sharing from the app in iTunes (on the user's computer) by adding the UIFileSharingEnabled key (Application supports iTunes file sharing) to your Info.plist file.
The typical way to enable sharing within the app is by using UIDocumentInteractionController or UIActivityViewController.
I'm trying to add iCloud Drive functionality to my iPhone app, by providing 2 features:
import a document which is stored on iCloud Drive to my local app
export a document from local store to iCloud Drive
The first part is done, and it was pretty easy. I used UIDocumentPicker with UIDocumentPickerModeImport to obtain a file url, which I just read to use the document in my app.
The second part, however, kind of confuses me. If I understand it correctly, all I have to do is instantiate a UIDocumentPicker with the file url of some document from the app local store, and the UIDocumentPicker will do all the rest (= saving to iCloud Drive, in case the user picks a location there).
Is this correct? Because this is what I've implemented. And while the files show up in the folder from picker selection, they will not sync neither to my Mac nor to www.icloud.com. So it seems like they are somehow stored in "the document picker on my phone", whatever this means.
Am I doing something wrong? The file I copied to the iCloud Drive folder on my mac perfectly showed up in the import-picker on the iPhone.
Actually, the files just turned up in finder (and also www.icloud.com). So it must have been some sync issue, or it just takes a while for it to sync.
Question answered/closed :)
In my app I have to upload files to server.
For that I need to view and choose files from my iPhone and iPad. (any kind of files i.e pdf , doc,dock , mp3 etc etc).
How can I get the path for these files and how can I choose them in my application.
Generally in iPhone Where are these files are stored? how we can fetch them in our application?
Is there any thing like UIImagePickerController to pick file from iPhone?
There are classes that allow you to interact with various media types that may be on an iOS based device.
As you mention UIImagePickerController.
For music, you can use a similar class: MPMediaPickerControllerDelegate.
With regard to other arbitrary documents;
There is no device-wide document store, and you cannot access files stored inside another app's app bundle, thus you cannot access saved PDF/doc files. There is no shared place for the user to save such PDFs in the first place. Which is why media libraries have specific APIs to access them because they are device-wide libraries.
The most you can do is register your app as a viewer of PDF documents. This would allow other apps to open a PDF in your app if they use a UIDocumentInteractionController.
Your best option is probably to use File Sharing which will allow your application to own files on the device which can be synced via iTunes.
This will enable you to create your own UI, to present these files from your applications document folder.
Further reading: iOS File System Basics, File System Programming Guide.