capturing images with MediaStore.ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE intent in android

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Photos taken by the ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE are not registered in the MediaStore automatically on all devices.

The official Android guide gives that example:
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/media/camera.html#intent-receive
But that does not work either on all devices.

The only reliable method I am aware of consists in saving the path to the picture in a local variable. Beware that your app may get killed while in background (while the camera app is running), so you must save the path during onSaveInstanceState.

Edit after comment:

Create a temporary file name where the photo will be stored when starting the intent.

File tempFile = File.createTempFile("my_app", ".jpg");
fileName = tempFile.getAbsolutePath();
Uri uri = Uri.fromFile(tempFile);
Intent intent = new Intent(MediaStore.ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE);
intent.putExtra(MediaStore.EXTRA_OUTPUT, uri);
startActivityForResult(intent, PICTURE_REQUEST_CODE);

fileName is a String, a field of your activity. You must save it that way:

@Override
public void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle bundle)
{
 super.onSaveInstanceState(bundle);
 bundle.putString("fileName", fileName);
}

and recover it in onCreate():

public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)
{
 if (savedInstanceState != null)
  fileName = savedInstanceState.getString("fileName");
 // ...
}

Now, at the time of onActivityResult, you know the name of the file where the photo was stored (fileName). You can do anything you wish with it, and then delete it.

2013-09-19 edit: It seems that some camera apps ignore the putExtra uri, and store the pic in a different place. So, before using the value of fileName you should check whether the intent is null or not. If you get a non-null intent, then you should prefer intent.getData() over fileName. Use fileName as a backup solution only when it is needed.

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