flutter_saver

A cross-platform Flutter plugin for saving any file type — images, videos, PDFs, audio, zip archives, and more — to device storage, and for downloading files from a network URL.

One API, every platform. No per-platform branching in your code.

Supported platforms

Platform	Save local file	Download from network
Android	✅	✅
iOS	✅	✅
macOS	✅	✅
Windows	✅	✅
Linux	✅	✅
Web	✅ (browser download)	✅ (browser download)

Installation

dependencies:
  flutter_saver: ^2.2.0

Platform setup

Android

Add the following to android/app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE"/>
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE"/>

<!-- Android 13+ (API 33) granular media permissions -->
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_MEDIA_IMAGES"/>
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_MEDIA_VIDEO"/>
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_MEDIA_AUDIO"/>

<application
    ...
    android:requestLegacyExternalStorage="true"> <!-- Required for API 29 -->

Note on API levels:

API 29 (Android 10): requestLegacyExternalStorage="true" is required.
API 33+ (Android 13): Use the granular READ_MEDIA_* permissions instead of (or in addition to) the legacy READ/WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permissions.

iOS

Add to ios/Runner/Info.plist:

<key>NSPhotoLibraryUsageDescription</key>
<string>This app saves files to your device.</string>
<key>NSPhotoLibraryAddUsageDescription</key>
<string>This app saves files to your Photos library.</string>

Files are saved as named sub-folders inside the app's sandbox Documents/ directory (e.g. Documents/Pictures/, Documents/Downloads/).

macOS

Add to macos/Runner/DebugProfile.entitlements and macos/Runner/Release.entitlements:

<key>com.apple.security.files.downloads.read-write</key>
<true/>
<key>com.apple.security.files.pictures.read-write</key>
<true/>
<key>com.apple.security.files.movies.read-write</key>
<true/>

macOS saves to real system folders (~/Downloads, ~/Pictures, ~/Movies, ~/Documents, ~/Music). Directories without a native macOS equivalent (dcim, podcasts, ringtones, etc.) fall back to ~/Downloads.

Windows

No extra setup required. Files are saved to the user's Downloads folder via SHGetKnownFolderPath (Win32 Shell API). File writes happen on a background thread and are marshalled back to the platform thread safely. Other SaveDirectory values fall back to Downloads with a debug warning.

Linux

No extra setup required. Directories are resolved via GLib's XDG user-dirs (g_get_user_special_dir). Supported directories:

SaveDirectory	XDG directory
downloads	`G_USER_DIRECTORY_DOWNLOAD`
pictures	`G_USER_DIRECTORY_PICTURES`
movies / videos	`G_USER_DIRECTORY_VIDEOS`
documents	`G_USER_DIRECTORY_DOCUMENTS`
music	`G_USER_DIRECTORY_MUSIC`
all others	→ Downloads fallback

Web

No extra setup required. The browser handles the save dialog. SaveDirectory is ignored on Web (the browser controls the location).

downloadFile on Web first fetches the URL and downloads the response as a Blob — this works for every format (jpg, png, svg, mp4, mp3, pdf, zip, …) and keeps your suggested file name, but it requires the remote host to allow CORS (Access-Control-Allow-Origin). Browsers deliberately block reading cross-origin bytes without it, and they also ignore the download attribute on cross-origin links — no library can bypass this.

When the host blocks CORS, flutter_saver automatically re-fetches the file through a CORS proxy so the download still happens. The proxies are configurable:

// Override with your own proxy (recommended for production — privacy:
// public proxies see the fetched URLs), or set to [] to disable the
// fallback (non-CORS hosts then open in a new tab instead).
FlutterSaver.webCorsProxies = [
  'https://my-proxy.example.com/{rawUrl}', // {rawUrl} = plain URL
  // 'https://my-proxy.example.com/?url={url}', // {url} = encoded URL
];

To make a file directly downloadable from your own server (best option — no proxy involved), serve it with:

Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Content-Disposition: attachment        # optional — forces download even on navigation

Usage

import 'package:flutter_saver/flutter_saver.dart';

Save a local file

final Uint8List bytes = /* your file bytes */;

final SaveResult result = await FlutterSaver.saveFile(
  bytes: bytes,
  fileName: 'my_photo.jpg',            // optional — random name if omitted
  directory: SaveDirectory.pictures,   // optional — defaults to downloads
);

if (result.success) {
  print('Saved to: ${result.filePath}');
} else {
  print('Error: ${result.error}');
}

Save a camera photo / picked file (XFile)

Works with image_picker (camera & gallery) on every platform — the XFile is read and pushed through the same unified save pipeline:

final XFile? photo = await ImagePicker().pickImage(
  source: ImageSource.camera,
);

if (photo != null) {
  final SaveResult result = await FlutterSaver.saveXFile(
    photo,
    directory: SaveDirectory.pictures,
  );
  print(result.success ? 'Saved: ${result.filePath}' : result.error);
}

The file name is taken from the XFile (name/path, or inferred from its MIME type) unless you pass fileName explicitly.

Download a file from the network

final SaveResult result = await FlutterSaver.downloadFile(
  link: 'https://example.com/document.pdf',
  fileName: 'document.pdf',            // optional — inferred from URL / Content-Type
  directory: SaveDirectory.documents,  // optional — defaults to downloads
);

if (result.success) {
  print('Downloaded to: ${result.filePath}');
}

SaveDirectory values

Value	Android	iOS (sandbox)	macOS	Windows	Web
`downloads`	`DOWNLOADS`	`Documents/Downloads/`	`~/Downloads`	`~/Downloads`	browser
`pictures`	`PICTURES`	`Documents/Pictures/`	`~/Pictures`	⬇ Downloads	browser
`movies`	`MOVIES`	`Documents/Movies/`	`~/Movies`	⬇ Downloads	browser
`dcim`	`DCIM`	`Documents/DCIM/`	⬇ Pictures	⬇ Downloads	browser
`documents`	`DOCUMENTS`	`Documents/Documents/`	`~/Documents`	⬇ Downloads	browser
`music`	`MUSIC`	`Documents/Music/`	`~/Music`	⬇ Downloads	browser
`podcasts`	⬇ Music	`Documents/Podcasts/`	⬇ Downloads	⬇ Downloads	browser
`ringtones`	`RINGTONES`	`Documents/Ringtones/`	⬇ Downloads	⬇ Downloads	browser
`alarms`	`ALARMS`	`Documents/Alarms/`	⬇ Downloads	⬇ Downloads	browser
`notifications`	`NOTIFICATIONS`	`Documents/Notifications/`	⬇ Downloads	⬇ Downloads	browser
`screenshots`	⬇ Pictures	`Documents/Screenshots/`	⬇ Downloads	⬇ Downloads	browser
`audiobooks`	⬇ Music	`Documents/Audiobooks/`	⬇ Downloads	⬇ Downloads	browser

⬇ = falls back to the indicated directory; debug warning is printed.

SaveResult

class SaveResult {
  final bool success;
  final String? filePath;  // null on Web
  final String? error;     // non-null when success == false
}

Supported MIME types → extensions (auto-detected on download)

Images: jpg, png, gif, webp, svg, tiff, ico, bmp, psd, djvu, xbm
Video: mp4, avi, mpeg, mov, wmv, flv, webm, ogv, mkv, 3gp, 3g2
Audio: mp3, wav, ogg, flac, aac, m4a, opus, wma, aiff, mka
Documents: pdf, zip, docx, xlsx, pptx, exe, dwg

Migration guide (v1 → v2)

v1 method	v2 equivalent
`FlutterSaver.saveImageAndroid(data, name, dir)`	`FlutterSaver.saveFile(bytes: data, fileName: name, directory: dir)`
`FlutterSaver.saveImageIos(data, name, dir)`	`FlutterSaver.saveFile(bytes: data, fileName: name, directory: dir)`
`FlutterSaver.saveImageMacOs(data, name, dir)`	`FlutterSaver.saveFile(bytes: data, fileName: name, directory: dir)`
`FlutterSaver.saveImageWindowsWeb(data, name)`	`FlutterSaver.saveFile(bytes: data, fileName: name)`
`FlutterSaver.saveNetworkFileAndroid(link, name, dir)`	`FlutterSaver.downloadFile(link: link, fileName: name, directory: dir)`
`FlutterSaver.saveNetworkFileIos(link, name, dir)`	`FlutterSaver.downloadFile(link: link, fileName: name, directory: dir)`
`FlutterSaver.saveNetworkFileMac(link, name, dir)`	`FlutterSaver.downloadFile(link: link, fileName: name, directory: dir)`
`FlutterSaver.saveNetworkFileWindowsWeb(link, name)`	`FlutterSaver.downloadFile(link: link, fileName: name)`
`AndroidDirectory.downloads`	`SaveDirectory.downloads`
`DirectoryType.pictures`	`SaveDirectory.pictures`
`MacDirectoryType.movies`	`SaveDirectory.movies`
Return `bool`	Return `SaveResult` — check `result.success`

License

MIT