Question

In reference to question

Can anyone explain the File() parameters used to download file in android?

Can I do it without creating virtual SD Card. Is there any way to save the file in phone memory in internal memory? if it is possible without using the virtual SD Card, then how?

Answer 1

your question is a bit unclear about which you want to use, so here’s both.

Like mbaird said, you can easily save a file to the phone’s internal storage using
Context.openFileOutput(). For example:

// Create file on internal storage and open it for writing
FileOutputStream fileOut;
try {
    fileOut = openFileOutput(userId +".ics", Context.MODE_PRIVATE);
} catch (IOException e) {
    // Error handling
}

// Write to output stream as usual
// ...

This would create a new file on the phone’s internal storage, at a path like this:
/data/data/com.example.yourpackagename/files/123456.ics.

Only your application can read this file; others will not be able to read this file, like they would if it was on the SD card.

---

If you want to save a file to the SD card, you need something like this:

if (Environment.getExternalStorageState() != Environment.MEDIA_MOUNTED) {
    // SD card is not available
    return;
}

File root = Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory() +"/myapp/";
File newFile = new File(root, userId +".ics");
FileOutputStream fileOut = new FileOutputStream(newFile);

// Write to output stream as usual
// ...

As you can see, you cannot rely on an SD card being present and available for writing to at any given point in time. This could be for several reasons:

• The device/emulator has no SD card
• The SD card is being shared with the PC
• The SD card is read-only
• The SD card has no file system
• The SD card is corrupt