Accessing Downloads folder in iOS

[brentpicasso]

Hi, in our iOS app, I can't seem to access downloaded files.

I downloaded a log file and video file from the web using safari, and our app needs to be able to open it.

On iOS, would we do this using the standard file browsing tool, or something else? EDIT: it seems like we need to use an ios provided solution, example below.

The file types are .log (a text file) and a video .mp4 file.

Looks like plyer only supports picking images? https://github.com/kivy/plyer/blob/master/plyer/platforms/ios/filechooser.py

Main question

What would be a clean way for plyer to support browsing and selecting both?

Could we open the downloads directory if it's something other than .jpg, and then the images browser if image?

However, what if we want to access a downloaded image? How could the user indicate if they want to access downloads vs camera images?

Possible example code for accessing the downloads directory

ChatGPT helped with more info with this example:

from pyobjus import autoclass, objc_str, ObjcCallback
from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.button import Button

class FilePickerApp(App):
    def build(self):
        return Button(text="Pick a File", on_press=self.open_file_picker)

    def open_file_picker(self, *args):
        UIDocumentPickerViewController = autoclass('UIDocumentPickerViewController')
        NSURL = autoclass('NSURL')

        # Allow user to pick any file type
        file_types = [objc_str("public.item")]

        # Create the document picker
        picker = UIDocumentPickerViewController.alloc().initWithDocumentTypes_inMode_(
            file_types, 0  # 0 = UIDocumentPickerModeImport
        )
        picker.setAllowsMultipleSelection_(False)  # Single file selection
        picker.setDelegate_(self)

        # Present the picker
        UIApplication = autoclass("UIApplication")
        app = UIApplication.sharedApplication()
        window = app.keyWindow
        root_view_controller = window.rootViewController
        root_view_controller.presentViewController_animated_completion_(picker, True, None)

    # Delegate method to handle file selection
    @ObjcCallback
    def documentPicker_didPickDocumentsAtURLs_(self, picker, urls):
        NSURL = autoclass("NSURL")
        for url in urls:
            nsurl = NSURL.alloc().initWithString_(url)
            file_path = nsurl.path  # Convert NSURL to Python-compatible file path
            print(f"Selected file path: {file_path}")

            # Example: Read the file (if it's a text file)
            try:
                with open(file_path, "r") as file:
                    print("File contents:", file.read())
            except Exception as e:
                print(f"Error reading file: {e}")

    # Delegate method to handle cancellation
    @ObjcCallback
    def documentPickerWasCancelled_(self, picker):
        print("File picker cancelled")

FilePickerApp().run()

[brentpicasso]

Perhaps we can use the same API but pass in a kwarg to indicate what source we want to download from.

For example, if we pass in target="downloads" then it would access the file selection for accessing downloads instead of images.