embedded_media_picker

A Flutter plugin for Android's embedded photo picker, with Android and iOS modal picker fallbacks.

Platform support

Android embedded picker support uses androidx.photopicker:photopicker:1.0.0-alpha02. Treat the embedded Android surface as early-stage until AndroidX publishes a stable artifact.

Feature Highlights

Android	iOS

Android shows the newer embedded picker surface: the picker can live inside the app UI while selected URI grants and revocations stream back in real time. iOS shows the privacy-focused picker flow, where the app receives only the selected items instead of broad photo library access.

Regenerate feature screenshots with flutter test tool/render_feature_screenshots_test.dart --update-goldens from the example directory.

Pick media

const picker = EmbeddedMediaPicker();

final items = await picker.pickMedia(
  options: const EmbeddedMediaPickerOptions(
    maxSelectionLimit: 5,
    orderedSelection: true,
    persistablePermissions: true,
  ),
);

for (final item in items) {
  print('${item.uri} ${item.mimeType} ${item.sizeBytes}');
}

pickMedia() returns PickedMedia objects:

• uri
• type
• mimeType
• fileName
• sizeBytes
• isTemporary

On iOS, PHPickerViewController results are copied into the app temporary directory and returned as file:// URIs, so isTemporary is true.

Embed the Android picker

Use EmbeddedMediaPickerView only when isEmbeddedPickerAvailable() returns true:

final controller = EmbeddedMediaPickerController();
final embeddedAvailable = await const EmbeddedMediaPicker()
    .isEmbeddedPickerAvailable();

if (embeddedAvailable) {
  EmbeddedMediaPickerView(
    controller: controller,
    options: const EmbeddedMediaPickerOptions(
      mediaType: EmbeddedMediaType.imageAndVideo,
      maxSelectionLimit: 5,
      orderedSelection: true,
      accentColorArgb: 0xff6750a4,
    ),
    onSelectionChanged: (items) {
      // Android returns content:// URIs with picker-granted access.
    },
    onSelectionComplete: () {
      // User tapped the picker completion action.
    },
    onError: (code, message) {
      // Handle unsupported versions or embedded picker session errors.
    },
  );
}

The controller provides state and streams:

controller.selectionChanges.listen((items) {});
controller.permissionGrants.listen((items) {});
controller.permissionRevocations.listen((items) {});
controller.errors.listen((error) {});

Permissions

This package does not request broad photo library permissions.

On Android fallback requests, set persistablePermissions: true to ask the plugin to persist read access when the system returns persistable document URIs. Android embedded picker grants and revokes item access as the user selects or deselects media.

On iOS, move or copy temporary files if the app needs long-term retention.