Xamarin Forms: Share Media With Other Apps

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Introduction

This article provides a solution to share media files from Xamarin.Forms mobile application with other mobile apps.

Background

Before proceeding with this article, please go through some basics of Xamarin.Forms, Dependency Service, Xamarin.Android and Xamarin.iOS. That will help you understand the flow of the project.

Using the Code

Here, we will be using two clients (Android and iOS). 

Xamarin.Portable

We'll be using DependencyService to have different implementations for different clients. Here is the interface used.

    public interface IShareImage
    {
        Task Share(string url);
    }

In your XAML page, add the following ToolBarItem with a Command associated:

            var share = new ToolbarItem
            {
                Text = "Share",
                Command = new Command(async () =>
                {
                    try
                    {
                        await DependencyService.Get<IShareImage>().Share("Your Media Link");
                    }
                    catch (Exception ex)
                    {
                        Console.WriteLine(ex);
                        await DisplayAlert("Error", "Something went wrong. 
                                            Please try again later", "OK");
                    }
                })
            };

            ToolbarItems.Add(share);

Xamarin.Android

For Android Implementation, first we need to temporarily save the image on the device, and then we can share it using Intent. To get this flow to work, user needs to allow permissions for the app in the App Info in the mobile device settings.

Temporarily saving the image on the device:

            var path = Android.OS.Environment.GetExternalStoragePublicDirectory("Temp");

            if (!File.Exists(path.Path))
            {
                Directory.CreateDirectory(path.Path);
            }

            string absPath = path.Path + "tempfile.jpg";
            File.WriteAllBytes(absPath, GetBytes(url));

Now creating an Intent to share the image:

            var _context = Android.App.Application.Context;
            Intent sendIntent = new Intent(global::Android.Content.Intent.ActionSend);
            sendIntent.PutExtra(global::Android.Content.Intent.ExtraText, "Application Name");
            sendIntent.SetType("image/*");
            sendIntent.PutExtra(Intent.ExtraStream, Android.Net.Uri.Parse("file://" + absPath));
            _context.StartActivity(Intent.CreateChooser(sendIntent, "Sharing"));

AndroidManifest.XML

To get it to work, we need to allow these permissions for our application.

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

File Provider Access

If your targetSdkVersion >= 24, then we have to use FileProvider class to give access to the particular file or folder to make them accessible for other apps.There are different ways of doing it but this is how I've done. Add the following lines in MAINACTIVITY.CS class:

          StrictMode.VmPolicy.Builder builder = new StrictMode.VmPolicy.Builder();
          StrictMode.SetVmPolicy(builder.Build());

Xamarin.iOS

Here is the IShareImage implementation for Xamarin.iOS.

            var imgSource = ImageSource.FromUri(new Uri(url));
            var handler = new ImageLoaderSourceHandler();
            var uiImage = await handler.LoadImageAsync(imgSource);
            var img = NSObject.FromObject(uiImage);
            var mess = NSObject.FromObject("App Name");
            var activityItems = new[] { mess, img };
            var activityController = new UIActivityViewController(activityItems, null);
            var topController = UIApplication.SharedApplication.KeyWindow.RootViewController;

            while (topController.PresentedViewController != null)
            {
                topController = topController.PresentedViewController;
            }

            topController.PresentViewController(activityController, true, () => { });

Info.plist

In case you want to save the media/image to your device, do not forget to set the following Property on Info.plist.

• Privacy - Photo Library Additions Usage Description

Points of Interest

With minor changes, this code can be reused for different media types like mp3, mp4, documents, pdf, etc.