Flutter: How to get a File object from ImageProvider in Flutter?

Question

How can I get a File from an ImageProvider?

ImageProvider imageProvider = NetworkImage(networkUrl);
File file = imageProvider ?

Answer 1

Although ImageProvider with NetworkImage renders the content of your network image URL, it doesn't have direct APIs or easy way for you to be able to convert it to a File object. With that said, you can still manually cache (or download) the image/s and get the download stream.

As far as I can understand your question, you are trying to access the network image URL as a File object. Instead of using ImageProvider, you can take a look at the flutter_cache_manager, which is a plugin used for downloading and caching files locally, and save it for later use.

Example Usage

1. Downloading network image file from URL

await DefaultCacheManager().downloadFile(url);

2. Retrieving File object from the cache dir

// Retrieving File object
var file = await DefaultCacheManager().getSingleFile(imageUrl);

// File object available for use
// Eg. Reading file as string
file.readAsStringSync(...);

Further reading

• https://pub.dev/packages/flutter_cache_manager
• https://pub.dev/packages/cached_network_image