Local Image Provider Plugin

A library for searching and retrieving the metadata and contents of the images and albums on a mobile device.

This plugin contains a set of classes that make it easy to discover the metadata of the images and albums on the mobile device. It supports both Android and iOS. The content of images can be retrieved in a format compatible with ImageProvider. Note that this plugin has no UI components, it provides information about local photos that can be used to develop other applications.

Recent Updates

The 4.0.0-nullsafety version supports null safe applications.

The 3.0.0 version supports the web. It reports no images or albums foound when used on the web so it is meant to ensure that local_image_provider does not block web deployment for apps that depend on it. This is a major change that also uses a new platform interface.

The 2.3.0 version provides better support for image compression and improves support for the new limited access grant under iOS 14+.

Note: If you have feature requests or issue reports please post them as issues.

Using

To retrieve the list of the ten latest local images import the package and call the plugin, like so:

import 'package:local_image_provider/local_image_provider.dart' as lip;

    lip.LocalImageProvider imageProvider = lip.LocalImageProvider();
    bool hasPermission = await imageProvider.initialize();
    if ( hasPermission) {
        List<lip.LocalImage> images = await imageProvider.findLatest(10);
        images.forEach((image) => print( image.id));
    }
    else {
        print("The user has denied access to images on their device.");
    }

Get an ImageProvider for a local image like so:

import 'package:local_image_provider/local_image_provider.dart' as lip;
import 'package:flutter/painting.dart';
// ...

    lip.LocalImageProvider imageProvider = lip.LocalImageProvider();
    bool hasPermission = await imageProvider.initialize();
    if ( hasPermission) {
        List<lip.LocalImage> images = await imageProvider.findLatest(1);
        if ( !images.isEmpty ) {
            lip.LocalImage image = images.first;
            DeviceImage deviceImg = DeviceImage( image );
        }
        else {
            print("No images found on the device.");
        }
    else {
        print("The user has denied access to images on their device.");
    }

The DeviceImage can be used directly as an ImageProvider in an Image widget in Flutter. Assuming that _selectedImg is a LocalImage then that image can be displayed in a Flutter Widget tree like so:

    Container(
        child: Image( image: DeviceImage( _selectedImg ),
        ),
    ),

Permissions

Applications using this plugin require the following user permissions.

iOS

Add the following key to your Info.plist file, located in <project root>/ios/Runner/Info.plist:

• NSPhotoLibraryUsageDescription - describe why your app needs permission for the photo library. This is called Privacy - Photo Library Usage Description in the visual editor. This permission is required for the app to read the image and album information.
• PHPhotoLibraryPreventAutomaticLimitedAccessAlert - (optional) set this to YES, true, to block the iOS dialog that appears each time the app is launched if the user has granted limited access to their library.

Android

Add the storage permission to your AndroidManifest.xml file, located in <project root>/android/app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml:

• android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE - this allows the app to query and read the image and album information.

Build Issues

If you get the error "File local_image_provider-Swift.h missing" when trying to build, see this SO reference for possible solutions. The issue seems to be mixing Swift plugins with Flutter projects that weren't built with the Swift option. At least one user resolved the issue by adding use_frameworks! to their Podfile. That looks like this:

...
target 'Runner' do
  use_frameworks!
...