Develop Reference

How to access local downloaded videos(files) of the filesystem in the Android emulator?

I'am use Android Studio 4.0 on Mac(Linux/Mac system).
I want to copy downloaded videos to my computer from android emulator.
So I want to install android app from Play Store.
Inside app, downloaded and watched videos.
By the way I'm not sure this videos is saving on sdCard, caching or whatever. But I could not access this files.
I tried 2 different ways that listed below to find videos.
1-) Look at the ~/.android/avd/ for unix/mac system.
By default, the android tool creates the AVD directory inside
~/.android/avd/
2-) Android Studio, View -> Tools -> Device File Explorer.
Opened left panel, but not have videos inside those files.
Do you have any suggestions with this issue?
I can not try real device, because I am using iPhone currently.

android read video from windows

I want to test the behaviour of the mediaplayer I have implemented. This one doesn't read a stream from internet so I downloaded a mp4 video to test. But I cannot access my windows hard drive when using Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory(). The command Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory().getAbsolutePath() gives me /storage/sdcard. So here is my question : how to access windows hard drive from android emulator ? And is it possible ?

As far as I know, it is impossible.
You can not access windows hard drive from android emulator directly.
Instead, If you are familiar with client-server programming, you can access localhost(10.0.2.2).
For now, if you want to load your mp4 file, push that file to emulator sdcard using DDMS.
Inside Eclipse, window->Open perspective->DDMS.
There you have a file explorer (if not seen, window->show view-> file explorer)
Navigate to your sdcard (/storage/sdcard in your case)
On top-right of the explorer, there are buttons for push/pull/remove files

Accessing files from genymotion sd card

I have been using genymoton for quite some time now.
Could someone pls. tell me if there is a way by which I can access the files present in the sd card of genymotion emulator?
Currently I have to upload them to google driver and then download on windows.

You can use shared folder for that. It is well explain on this Google+ post.
Here is the brief:
Go to your VirtualBox VM setting / Shared folder tab
Add a shared folder with the folder you want to shared, and check the "auto mount" option
Start your VM as usual from the Genymotion software
Your shared folder is available in the /mnt/shared directory (multiple shared folders are supported)

This is also possible using the Android Device Monitor.
You already have this if you have the Android SDK installed.
This method works for all connected devices, including emulators like genymotion.
In Android Studio, click the icon that says Android Device Monitor in the toolbar.
(This is also available from Eclipse or you can just type monitor in the command line after moving to the tools folder of your installed sdk)
In the Android Device Monitor, go to the File Explorer tab.
Make sure you have a device selected on the left side.
Find the desired file and select it.
For the sdCard you might need to open the storage folder and open the sdcard there.
Click the button on top that says "Pull a file from the device".
Make sure you select Pull, not Push. Unless if you want to put new files on your device ofcourse.
Save the file to your computer...
and voila! The file from your genymotion is now among your other files on your computer. Ready to be used however you like.
Or alternatively you can also use a third party app like airdroid or any advanced file explorer to exchange files between your device and your computer.
(For installing third party apps you either need to find the apk or flash gapps on your genymotion first and go to the play store.)

Another way that I adopted, just install EsFileEx on genymotion.
Grab your files that you want to copy from e.g
/sdcard/WhatsApp/media/dp.jpeg
Swipe to LAN, here you can see your local machine as 10.0.3.2 or any IP. Here you can access your shared folder/drive of local machine/PC, past copied file here and you done!
NOTE! R/W permission should be set on shared folder/drive of local machine/PC

You can use the eclipse with the ADT plugin and browse the file system like any other android virtual emulators. I have been using this for a while, but eclipse crashes at some times.

File on sd card displayed in android emulator's gallery app

I have created an app which lets the user save an image to the sd card, but I cannot see it in the gallery app on my emulator. I'm not sure if I need special code for this or what but I need to be able to find it so that I can see if my code actually works.

I need to be able to find it so that I can see if my code actually works.
If your ultimate objective is to see the files on the SD card, then that can be achieved in several ways:
Use file explorer that comes bundled in Android Debug Monitor.***
Login to device/emulator shell, adb shell, and navigate to SD card folder (that's usually at /sdcard or /mnt/sdcard) and use ls command to list the contents.
Install/use one of many available file explorer apps and navigate to SD card through the device/emulator UI.
***Example:
Launch the ADM by running monitor command (if the SDK tools is not in your path, then first navigate to tools/ directory).
There will be several perspectives: LogCat, Threads, Heap, etc. You need to switch to File Explorer tab.
Above is File Explorer view for Galaxy Nexus, the actual path for SD card may differ for your device/emulator.

You need to add the File to the media Library look at the MediaScannerConnection. You will need to call the ScanFile (after connected) and then the image will be added to the gallery.

Putting files in emulator external storage, prior to app starting

Using the emulator, with external storage attached, I would like to emulate what happens when the application starts up and certain files are already present in the relevant directory on ext storage.
Is the external storage actually located on my machine, after enabling it in the AVD? Or should I be creating the files with some temporary, throw away code? Or should I just test on a real device?
What is best practice for this scenario?

The sdcard.img is in the avd folder (~/.android/avd). If you are using Linux or OSX you can mount it, manipulate the files inside, and unmount it.
Probably there's a program in Windows that let you do the same.
As an alternative, you can start the emulator and then manipulate the sdcard content using adb push/pull or DDMS.

The easiest way of creating the SDCard contents, would be to create the files that you need on your machine and then using the DDMS Perspective in Eclipse you can select your emulator in the Devices panel on the left, and then choose the FileExplorer tab on the right. There is a folder named sdcard which contains the SDCard contents.
By using the controlls on the right upper-side you can create folders inside the SDCard and by you can also Push files on the emulators SDCard.
As #dtmilano said, you can also achieve the same thing using Command Prompt.