Saving image to Documents directory and retrieving for email attachment

Question

I having trouble figuring out NSBundle & DocumentDirectory data, I have a Camera Picture "imageView" that I'm saving to the NSDocumentDirectoy and then want to retrieve it for attaching to an email,

Here the saving code:

- (IBAction)saveImage {
    NSArray *paths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES);
    NSString *documentsDirectory = [paths objectAtIndex:0];
    NSString *savedImagePath = [documentsDirectory stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"savedImage.png"];
    UIImage *image = imageView.image; // imageView is my image from camera
    NSData *imageData = UIImagePNGRepresentation(image);
    [imageData writeToFile:savedImagePath atomically:NO];   
}

Here is the new getting data code:

    NSArray *paths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES);
    NSString *documentsDirectory = [paths objectAtIndex:0];
    NSString *appFile = [documentsDirectory stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"savedImage.png"];
    NSData *myData = [[[NSData alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:appFile] autorelease];
    [picker addAttachmentData:myData mimeType:@"image/png" fileName:@"savedImage"];

Pixie

can you tell me how you got the camera image in the first place please? i.e. the reference to the UIImage that you took with the camera. Thanks. – Forest

where to call saveImage action. I am new on the Xcode. – Baltazar

Answer 1

- (IBAction)getImage {
    NSArray *paths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory,     NSUserDomainMask, YES);
    NSString *documentsDirectory = [paths objectAtIndex:0];
    NSString *getImagePath = [documentsDirectory stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"savedImage.png"];
    UIImage *img = [UIImage imageWithContentsOfFile:getImagePath];
}

This should get you started!

Await

Thanks, It's different than Ben's answer but the email attachment needs NSData to be added, I must be missing something in you answer. How would I attach the "img: named to the email? Thanks – Pixie

[picker addAttachmentData:myData mimeType:@"image/png" fileName:@"icon"]; The "data" above is the nsdata representation of the image. "picker" is the email component. it's already attached. – Await

Does saving it to documents automatically generate a unique file name for the image? – Jerkin

When you save to documents, you pass in a file path yourself. You can create a temp file using: #216320 – Await

Answer 2

Swift 3

// Create a URL
let documentsURL = FileManager.default.urls(for: .documentDirectory, in: .userDomainMask).first
let imageURL = documentsURL?.appendingPathComponent("MyImageName.png")

// save image to URL
let myImage = imageView.image! // or wherever you have your UIImage

do {
    try UIImagePNGRepresentation(myImage)?.write(to: imageURL!)
} catch {}


// Use the URL to retrieve the image for sharing to email, social media, etc.
// docController.URL = imageURL
// ...

I force unwrapped some of the optionals for brevity. Use guard or if let in your code.

Ecotype

In fact there are two available cases - .documentationDirectory and .documentDirectory, which are not the same thing. The question was about documents directory so I guess you just picked a wrong value from code completion suggestions ;) – Aeolis

@alexburtnik, ah, yes, probably. Thank your for your explanation (and for fixing my mistake). – Ecotype

Answer 3

Because each iPhone app is in it's own sandbox, you don't have access to a device-wide documents folder. To attach an image to an email, save the image in your own documents folder. Try using [@"~/Documents" StringByExpandingTildeInPath] to get your local documents folder - that works for me. It looks like the technique you're using for attaching the image to an email is correct.

Hope that helps,

Pericarditis

I'm getting a error expected ":" before ";" on this line: NSString *path = [[@"~Documents"] pathForResource:@"image" ofType:@"png"]; Any Ideas? Thanks for both you help. – Pixie

Remember to add the "stringByExpandingTildeInPath" part. (And it needs to be "~/Documents", not "~Documents". stringByExpandingTildeInPath is a method of NSString that will automatically replace the ~ with the path to the user's home folder. – Pericarditis

Answer 4

Try this one :

 -(void)setProfilePic
{
  NSArray *docpaths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES);
  NSString *documentsDirectory = [docpaths objectAtIndex:0];
  NSString *imagePath = [documentsDirectory stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"Image.png"];

  NSData *imgData = [[NSData alloc] initWithContentsOfURL:[NSURL fileURLWithPath:imagePath]];
  UIImage *thumbNail = [[UIImage alloc] initWithData:imgData];
  [profilePic_btn setBackgroundImage:thumbNail forState:UIControlStateNormal];
}

Chaparro