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Hassan Ansari edited this page Mar 23, 2023 · 1 revision

FileSaver

This plugin package is not much but only for saving files in Android, iOS, Web, Windows, MacOS and Linux. The package depends on path_provider for Android and iOS and basic html anchor for Web The main reason I built this plugin was to avoid using html only for downloading files. The plugin is pretty simple and saves the file in Downloads folder in Windows, MacOS, Linux and directly downloads the file in Web, in iOS, the file is Saved in Application Documents Directory, and in Android it is saved in the applications files directory Android/data/your.package.name/file/your_file.extension.

Getting Started

The plugin itself is pretty easy to use. Just call the method saveFile() with respective arguments.

await FileSaver.instance.saveFile({
      required String name,
      Uint8List? bytes,
      File? file,
      String? filePath,
      String? link,
      String ext = "",
      MimeType mimeType = MimeType.other});

This saveFile() method has 7 Name arguments.

String name which takes the name of the file,
Uint8List bytes which will be your actual encoded file,
Or
File file which will be your file in the File object (from dart:io)
Or
Stirng filePath which will be your file path
Or
String link which will the link to your file
Out of these parameters, you will have to use atleast one

String ext this will be your file extension.
Another parameter is MimeType type Specifically for Web, which will be your file type

MimeType is also included in my Package, I've included types for Sheets, Presentation, Word, Plain Text, PDF, MP3, MP4 and many other common formats

or you can call saveAs() only available for android and iOS at the moment

await FileSaver.instance.saveAs({
      required String name,
      Uint8List? bytes,
      File? file,
      String? filePath,
      String? link,
      required String ext,
      required MimeType mimeType});

All the parameters in this method is same as the saveFile() method.

Storage Permissions & Network Permissions:

These Settings are optional for iOS, as in iOS the file will be saved in application documents directory but will not be visible in Files application, to make your file visible in iOS Files application, make the changes mentioned below.

iOS:

Go to your project folder, ios/Runner/info.plist and Add these keys:

<key>LSSupportsOpeningDocumentsInPlace</key>
<true/>
<key>UIFileSharingEnabled</key>
<true/>

iOS

Or in XCode:

Open Your Project in XCode (Open XCode -> Open a project or file -> Your_Project_Folder/ios/Runner.xcworkspace) Open info.plist Add these rows:

Application supports iTunes file sharing (Boolean -> Yes)

Supports opening documents in place (Boolean -> Yes)

iOS Xcode

macOS:

Go to your project folder, macOS/Runner/DebugProfile.entitlements

For release you need to open 'YOUR_PROJECT_NAME'Profile.entitlements

and add the following key:

<key>com.apple.security.files.downloads.read-write</key>
<true/>

MacOS

Or in XCode:

Open Your Project in XCode (Open XCode -> Open a project or file -> Your_Project_Folder/macos/Runner.xcworkspace) Open your entitlement file (DebugProfile.entitlements & 'YOUR_PROJECT_NAME'Profile.entitlements)

Add these rows: MacOS Xcode

and if you get Client Socket Exception while saving files in MacOS from link, you have to add this key in the DebugProfile.entitlements and Release.entitlements of your macOS application and set the value to true

<key>com.apple.security.network.client</key>
<true/>

You can find these files in project_folder/macos/Runner/

And You're done

Thank You For Reading this far :)