Sharing Files in Flutter

Sharing is an integral part of mobile apps. Millions of digital content are produced and consumed every minute. Because of this, we can’t avoid a feature like this on our mobile apps.

There is a package named share in Flutter to do just this. it can be used to share just text or even Files.

First, let’s add the package to our pubspec.yaml file.

dependencies:
  flutter:
    sdk: flutter
  share: ^2.0.1 # add the latest version from pub.dev

To share a simple text, use Share.share() anywhere on our App.

Share.share("Your Text to Share");

It will bring up the share dialog of respective platform, whether if you’re using Android or iOs.

If we have to share Files, we can use Share.shareFiles() it accepts a list of File Paths to share.

File mycoolImage;
Share.shareFiles([mycoolImage.path,]);

below is the same example from Generate Image from Widget Tutorial, but with the added function of sharing the generated Image.

Future<void> takePicture() async {
  RenderRepaintBoundary boundary = genKey.currentContext.findRenderObject();
  ui.Image image = await boundary.toImage();
  final directory = (await getApplicationDocumentsDirectory()).path;
  ByteData byteData = await image.toByteData(format: ui.ImageByteFormat.png);
  Uint8List pngBytes = byteData.buffer.asUint8List();
  File imgFile = new File('$directory/photo.png');
  await imgFile.writeAsBytes(pngBytes);
  await Share.shareFiles([imgFile.path]);//Sharing the generated Image
}

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