Find location of a removable SD card
Environment.getExternalStorageState()returns path to internal SD mount point like "/mnt/sdcard"
No, Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory() refers to whatever the device manufacturer considered to be "external storage". On some devices, this is removable media, like an SD card. On some devices, this is a portion of on-device flash. Here, "external storage" means "the stuff accessible via USB Mass Storage mode when mounted on a host machine", at least for Android 1.x and 2.x.
But the question is about external SD. How to get a path like "/mnt/sdcard/external_sd" (it may differ from device to device)?
Android has no concept of "external SD", aside from external storage, as described above.
If a device manufacturer has elected to have external storage be on-board flash and also has an SD card, you will need to contact that manufacturer to determine whether or not you can use the SD card (not guaranteed) and what the rules are for using it, such as what path to use for it.
UPDATE
Two recent things of note:
First, on Android 4.4+, you do not have write access to removable media (e.g., "external SD"), except for any locations on that media that might be returned by getExternalFilesDirs() and getExternalCacheDirs(). See Dave Smith's excellent analysis of this, particularly if you want the low-level details.
Second, lest anyone quibble on whether or not removable media access is otherwise part of the Android SDK, here is Dianne Hackborn's assessment:
...keep in mind: until Android 4.4, the official Android platform has not supported SD cards at all except for two special cases: the old school storage layout where external storage is an SD card (which is still supported by the platform today), and a small feature added to Android 3.0 where it would scan additional SD cards and add them to the media provider and give apps read-only access to their files (which is also still supported in the platform today).
Android 4.4 is the first release of the platform that has actually allowed applications to use SD cards for storage. Any access to them prior to that was through private, unsupported APIs. We now have a quite rich API in the platform that allows applications to make use of SD cards in a supported way, in better ways than they have been able to before: they can make free use of their app-specific storage area without requiring any permissions in the app, and can access any other files on the SD card as long as they go through the file picker, again without needing any special permissions.
I came up with the following solution based on some answers found here.
CODE:
public class ExternalStorage {
public static final String SD_CARD = "sdCard";
public static final String EXTERNAL_SD_CARD = "externalSdCard";
/**
* @return True if the external storage is available. False otherwise.
*/
public static boolean isAvailable() {
String state = Environment.getExternalStorageState();
if (Environment.MEDIA_MOUNTED.equals(state) || Environment.MEDIA_MOUNTED_READ_ONLY.equals(state)) {
return true;
}
return false;
}
public static String getSdCardPath() {
return Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory().getPath() + "/";
}
/**
* @return True if the external storage is writable. False otherwise.
*/
public static boolean isWritable() {
String state = Environment.getExternalStorageState();
if (Environment.MEDIA_MOUNTED.equals(state)) {
return true;
}
return false;
}
/**
* @return A map of all storage locations available
*/
public static Map<String, File> getAllStorageLocations() {
Map<String, File> map = new HashMap<String, File>(10);
List<String> mMounts = new ArrayList<String>(10);
List<String> mVold = new ArrayList<String>(10);
mMounts.add("/mnt/sdcard");
mVold.add("/mnt/sdcard");
try {
File mountFile = new File("/proc/mounts");
if(mountFile.exists()){
Scanner scanner = new Scanner(mountFile);
while (scanner.hasNext()) {
String line = scanner.nextLine();
if (line.startsWith("/dev/block/vold/")) {
String[] lineElements = line.split(" ");
String element = lineElements[1];
// don't add the default mount path
// it's already in the list.
if (!element.equals("/mnt/sdcard"))
mMounts.add(element);
}
}
}
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
try {
File voldFile = new File("/system/etc/vold.fstab");
if(voldFile.exists()){
Scanner scanner = new Scanner(voldFile);
while (scanner.hasNext()) {
String line = scanner.nextLine();
if (line.startsWith("dev_mount")) {
String[] lineElements = line.split(" ");
String element = lineElements[2];
if (element.contains(":"))
element = element.substring(0, element.indexOf(":"));
if (!element.equals("/mnt/sdcard"))
mVold.add(element);
}
}
}
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
for (int i = 0; i < mMounts.size(); i++) {
String mount = mMounts.get(i);
if (!mVold.contains(mount))
mMounts.remove(i--);
}
mVold.clear();
List<String> mountHash = new ArrayList<String>(10);
for(String mount : mMounts){
File root = new File(mount);
if (root.exists() && root.isDirectory() && root.canWrite()) {
File[] list = root.listFiles();
String hash = "[";
if(list!=null){
for(File f : list){
hash += f.getName().hashCode()+":"+f.length()+", ";
}
}
hash += "]";
if(!mountHash.contains(hash)){
String key = SD_CARD + "_" + map.size();
if (map.size() == 0) {
key = SD_CARD;
} else if (map.size() == 1) {
key = EXTERNAL_SD_CARD;
}
mountHash.add(hash);
map.put(key, root);
}
}
}
mMounts.clear();
if(map.isEmpty()){
map.put(SD_CARD, Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory());
}
return map;
}
}
USAGE:
Map<String, File> externalLocations = ExternalStorage.getAllStorageLocations();
File sdCard = externalLocations.get(ExternalStorage.SD_CARD);
File externalSdCard = externalLocations.get(ExternalStorage.EXTERNAL_SD_CARD);
I had an application that used a ListPreference where the user was required to select the location of where they wanted to save something.
In that app, I scanned /proc/mounts and /system/etc/vold.fstab for sdcard mount points. I stored the mount points from each file into two separate ArrayLists.
Then, I compared one list with the other and discarded items that were not in both lists. That gave me a list of root paths to each sdcard.
From there, I tested the paths with File.exists(), File.isDirectory(), and File.canWrite(). If any of those tests were false, I discarded that path from the list.
Whatever was left in the list, I converted to a String[] array so it could be used by the ListPreference values attribute.
You can view the code here: http://sapienmobile.com/?p=204
You can try to use the support library function called of ContextCompat.getExternalFilesDirs() :
final File[] appsDir=ContextCompat.getExternalFilesDirs(getActivity(),null);
final ArrayList<File> extRootPaths=new ArrayList<>();
for(final File file : appsDir)
extRootPaths.add(file.getParentFile().getParentFile().getParentFile().getParentFile());
The first one is the primary external storage, and the rest are supposed to be real SD-cards paths.
The reason for the multiple ".getParentFile()" is to go up another folder, since the original path is
.../Android/data/YOUR_APP_PACKAGE_NAME/files/
EDIT: here's a more comprehensive way I've created, to get the sd-cards paths:
/**
* returns a list of all available sd cards paths, or null if not found.
*
* @param includePrimaryExternalStorage set to true if you wish to also include the path of the primary external storage
*/
@TargetApi(Build.VERSION_CODES.HONEYCOMB)
public static List<String> getSdCardPaths(final Context context, final boolean includePrimaryExternalStorage)
{
final File[] externalCacheDirs=ContextCompat.getExternalCacheDirs(context);
if(externalCacheDirs==null||externalCacheDirs.length==0)
return null;
if(externalCacheDirs.length==1)
{
if(externalCacheDirs[0]==null)
return null;
final String storageState=EnvironmentCompat.getStorageState(externalCacheDirs[0]);
if(!Environment.MEDIA_MOUNTED.equals(storageState))
return null;
if(!includePrimaryExternalStorage&&VERSION.SDK_INT>=VERSION_CODES.HONEYCOMB&&Environment.isExternalStorageEmulated())
return null;
}
final List<String> result=new ArrayList<>();
if(includePrimaryExternalStorage||externalCacheDirs.length==1)
result.add(getRootOfInnerSdCardFolder(externalCacheDirs[0]));
for(int i=1;i<externalCacheDirs.length;++i)
{
final File file=externalCacheDirs[i];
if(file==null)
continue;
final String storageState=EnvironmentCompat.getStorageState(file);
if(Environment.MEDIA_MOUNTED.equals(storageState))
result.add(getRootOfInnerSdCardFolder(externalCacheDirs[i]));
}
if(result.isEmpty())
return null;
return result;
}
/** Given any file/folder inside an sd card, this will return the path of the sd card */
private static String getRootOfInnerSdCardFolder(File file)
{
if(file==null)
return null;
final long totalSpace=file.getTotalSpace();
while(true)
{
final File parentFile=file.getParentFile();
if(parentFile==null||parentFile.getTotalSpace()!=totalSpace||!parentFile.canRead())
return file.getAbsolutePath();
file=parentFile;
}
}
Edit: better solution here:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/27197248/878126