[android] Android get image path from drawable as string

Is there any way that I can get the image path from drawable folder in android as String. I need this because I implement my own viewflow where I'm showing the images by using their path on sd card, but I want to show a default image when there is no image to show.

Any ideas how to do that?

This question is related to android drawable

The answer is


These all are ways:

String imageUri = "drawable://" + R.drawable.image;

Other ways I tested

Uri path = Uri.parse("android.resource://com.segf4ult.test/" + R.drawable.icon);
Uri otherPath = Uri.parse("android.resource://com.segf4ult.test/drawable/icon");

String path = path.toString();
String path = otherPath .toString();

I think you cannot get it as String but you can get it as int by get resource id:

int resId = this.getResources().getIdentifier("imageNameHere", "drawable", this.getPackageName());

based on the some of above replies i improvised it a bit

create this method and call it by passing your resource

Reusable Method

public String getURLForResource (int resourceId) {
    //use BuildConfig.APPLICATION_ID instead of R.class.getPackage().getName() if both are not same
    return Uri.parse("android.resource://"+R.class.getPackage().getName()+"/" +resourceId).toString();
}

Sample call

getURLForResource(R.drawable.personIcon)

complete example of loading image

String imageUrl = getURLForResource(R.drawable.personIcon);
// Load image
 Glide.with(patientProfileImageView.getContext())
          .load(imageUrl)
          .into(patientProfileImageView);

you can move the function getURLForResource to a Util file and make it static so it can be reused


If you are planning to get the image from its path, it's better to use Assets instead of trying to figure out the path of the drawable folder.

    InputStream stream = getAssets().open("image.png");
    Drawable d = Drawable.createFromStream(stream, null);

First check whether the file exists in SDCard. If the file doesnot exists in SDcard then you can set image using setImageResource() methodand passing default image from drawable folder

Sample Code

File imageFile = new File(absolutepathOfImage);//absolutepathOfImage is absolute path of image including its name
        if(!imageFile.exists()){//file doesnot exist in SDCard

        imageview.setImageResource(R.drawable.defaultImage);//set default image from drawable folder
        }