Android Get Application's 'Home' Data Directory

Question

A simple question, relating to the default 'home' directory when an app writes to the internal memory. By default, any files created are placed by the OS (2.2) in:

/data/data/your.package/files

When reading in files, the same default is used, when keeping in proper context via openFileInput(), openFileOutput(). But if I need to check file existence, for instance, using the File class, I need to specify the whole path in the constructor.

I see there are Environment.getDataDirectory() (returns /data), Environment.getRootDirectory() (returns /system), etc, but nothing related to getting the app's 'home' directory.

It's not a huge deal, but I'd rather not hard-code the full path into my App for File to use (say the package name changes, say the path changes in a future OS release) if there is some way to reference the app's 'home' directory programmatically.

Solution 1

Of course, never fails. Found the solution about a minute after posting the above question... solution for those that may have had the same issue:

ContextWrapper.getFilesDir()

Found here.

Solution 2

You can try Context.getApplicationInfo().dataDir if you want the package's persistent data folder.

getFilesDir() returns a subroot of this.

Solution 3

To get the path of file in application package;

ContextWrapper c = new ContextWrapper(this);
Toast.makeText(this, c.getFilesDir().getPath(), Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();

Comments

[Prizoff]

This returns /data/data/<homeAppDir>/files, but how to get path with out this "files"?

[David Snabel-Caunt]

@Prizoff Use Context.getApplicationInfo().dataDir, as per Kevin's answer below

[Ali Imran]

are you searching for this :-stackoverflow.com/questions/5527764/get-application-direct‌​ory

[David]

The right way is: context.getApplicationContext().getFilesDir()

[Michel]

Quote: "Of course, never fails" is not completely true. They fixed a number of race conditions in Android 4.4 ...(see code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=8886)

[Erum]

@Paul Mennega how can i find all pacakges and its cache size ?

[Mooing Duck]

This is returning "/data/user/0/<homeAppDir>/files" on my Google Nexus 6, which is the wrong folder.

[Mooing Duck]

This is returning "/data/user/0/<homeAppDir>" on my Google Nexus 6, which is the wrong folder.

[TigerHix]

@MooingDuck It is because of the multi-user feature. android.stackexchange.com/questions/48393/…

[user4401]

applicationContext.filesDir.path.dropLast(5)

[prateek]

@Prizoff I believe you are looking for getFilesDir().getParentFile(). This returns the parent directory f your application's internal storage. Inside this directory you have got all other directories likes files or caches.