Use an image picker

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In this tutorial, learn how to use Expo Image Picker.

React Native provides built-in components as standard building blocks, such as <View>, <Text>, and <Pressable>. We are building a feature to select an image from the device's media gallery. This isn't possible with the core components and we'll need a library to add this feature in our app.

We'll use expo-image-picker, a library from Expo SDK.

expo-image-picker provides access to the system's UI to select images and videos from the phone's library.

Watch: Using an image picker in your universal Expo app

Install expo-image-picker

To install the library, run the following command:

Terminal

- npx expo install expo-image-picker

Tip: Any time we install a new library in our project, stop the development server by pressing Ctrl + c in the terminal and then run the installation command. After the installation completes, we can start the development server again by running npx expo start from the same terminal window.

Pick an image from the device's media library

expo-image-picker provides launchImageLibraryAsync() method to display the system UI by choosing an image or a video from the device's media library. We'll use the primary themed button created in the previous chapter to select an image from the device's media library and create a function to launch the device's image library to implement this functionality.

In app/(tabs)/index.tsx, import expo-image-picker library and create a pickImageAsync() function inside the Index component:

app/(tabs)/index.tsx

// ...rest of the import statements remain unchanged
import * as ImagePicker from 'expo-image-picker';

export default function Index() {
  const pickImageAsync = async () => {
    let result = await ImagePicker.launchImageLibraryAsync({
      mediaTypes: ['images'],
      allowsEditing: true,
      quality: 1,
    });

    if (!result.canceled) {
      console.log(result);
    } else {
      alert('You did not select any image.');
    }
  };

  // ...rest of the code remains same
}

Let's learn what the above code does:

The launchImageLibraryAsync() receives an object to specify different options. This object is the ImagePickerOptions object, which we are passing when invoking the method.
When allowsEditing is set to true, the user can crop the image during the selection process on Android and iOS.

Update the button component

On pressing the primary button, we'll call the pickImageAsync() function on the Button component. Update the onPress prop of the Button component in components/Button.tsx:

components/Button.tsx

import { StyleSheet, View, Pressable, Text } from 'react-native';
import FontAwesome from '@expo/vector-icons/FontAwesome';

type Props = {
  label: string;
  theme?: 'primary';
  onPress?: () => void;
};

export default function Button({ label, theme, onPress }: Props) {
  if (theme === 'primary') {
    return (
      <View
        style={[
          styles.buttonContainer,
          { borderWidth: 4, borderColor: '#ffd33d', borderRadius: 18 },
        ]}>
        <Pressable style={[styles.button, { backgroundColor: '#fff' }]} onPress={onPress}>
          <FontAwesome name="picture-o" size={18} color="#25292e" style={styles.buttonIcon} />
          <Text style={[styles.buttonLabel, { color: '#25292e' }]}>{label}</Text>
        </Pressable>
      </View>
    );
  }

  return (
    <View style={styles.buttonContainer}>
      <Pressable style={styles.button} onPress={() => alert('You pressed a button.')}>
        <Text style={styles.buttonLabel}>{label}</Text>
      </Pressable>
    </View>
  );
}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  buttonContainer: {
    width: 320,
    height: 68,
    marginHorizontal: 20,
    alignItems: 'center',
    justifyContent: 'center',
    padding: 3,
  },
  button: {
    borderRadius: 10,
    width: '100%',
    height: '100%',
    alignItems: 'center',
    justifyContent: 'center',
    flexDirection: 'row',
  },
  buttonIcon: {
    paddingRight: 8,
  },
  buttonLabel: {
    color: '#fff',
    fontSize: 16,
  },
});

In app/(tabs)/index.tsx, add the pickImageAsync() function to the onPress prop on the first <Button>.

app/(tabs)/index.tsx

import { View, StyleSheet } from 'react-native';
import * as ImagePicker from 'expo-image-picker';

import Button from '@/components/Button';
import ImageViewer from '@/components/ImageViewer';

const PlaceholderImage = require('@/assets/images/background-image.png');

export default function Index() {
  const pickImageAsync = async () => {
    let result = await ImagePicker.launchImageLibraryAsync({
      mediaTypes: ['images'],
      allowsEditing: true,
      quality: 1,
    });

    if (!result.canceled) {
      console.log(result);
    } else {
      alert('You did not select any image.');
    }
  };

  return (
    <View style={styles.container}>
      <View style={styles.imageContainer}>
        <ImageViewer imgSource={PlaceholderImage} />
      </View>
      <View style={styles.footerContainer}>
        <Button theme="primary" label="Choose a photo" onPress={pickImageAsync} />
        <Button label="Use this photo" />
      </View>
    </View>
  );
}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
    backgroundColor: '#25292e',
    alignItems: 'center',
  },
  imageContainer: {
    flex: 1,
  },
  footerContainer: {
    flex: 1 / 3,
    alignItems: 'center',
  },
});

The pickImageAsync() function invokes ImagePicker.launchImageLibraryAsync() and then handles the result. The launchImageLibraryAsync() method returns an object containing information about the selected image.

Here is an example of the result object and the properties it contains:

{
  "assets": [
    {
      "assetId": null,
      "base64": null,
      "duration": null,
      "exif": null,
      "fileName": "ea574eaa-f332-44a7-85b7-99704c22b402.jpeg",
      "fileSize": 4513577,
      "height": 4570,
      "mimeType": "image/jpeg",
      "rotation": null,
      "type": "image",
      "uri": "file:///data/user/0/host.exp.exponent/cache/ExperienceData/%2540anonymous%252FStickerSmash-13f21121-fc9d-4ec6-bf89-bf7d6165eb69/ImagePicker/ea574eaa-f332-44a7-85b7-99704c22b402.jpeg",
      "width": 2854
    }
  ],
  "canceled": false
}

{
  "assets": [
    {
      "assetId": "99D53A1F-FEEF-40E1-8BB3-7DD55A43C8B7/L0/001",
      "base64": null,
      "duration": null,
      "exif": null,
      "fileName": "IMG_0004.JPG",
      "fileSize": 2548364,
      "height": 1669,
      "mimeType": "image/jpeg",
      "type": "image",
      "uri": "file:///data/user/0/host.exp.exponent/cache/ExperienceData/%2540anonymous%252FStickerSmash-13f21121-fc9d-4ec6-bf89-bf7d6165eb69/ImagePicker/ea574eaa-f332-44a7-85b7-99704c22b402.jpeg",
      "width": 1668
    }
  ],
  "canceled": false
}

{
  "assets": [
    {
      "fileName": "some-image.png",
      "height": 720,
      "mimeType": "image/png",
      "uri": "data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAABQAA"
    }
  ],
  "canceled": false
}

Use the selected image

The result object provides the assets array, which contains the uri of the selected image. Let's take this value from the image picker and use it to show the selected image in the app.

Modify the app/(tabs)/index.tsx file:

Declare a state variable called selectedImage using the useState hook from React. We'll use this state variable to hold the URI of the selected image.
Update the pickImageAsync() function to save the image URI in the selectedImage state variable.
Pass the selectedImage as a prop to the ImageViewer component.

app/(tabs)/index.tsx

import { View, StyleSheet } from 'react-native';
import * as ImagePicker from 'expo-image-picker';
import { useState } from 'react';

import Button from '@/components/Button';
import ImageViewer from '@/components/ImageViewer';

const PlaceholderImage = require('@/assets/images/background-image.png');

export default function Index() {
  const [selectedImage, setSelectedImage] = useState<string | undefined>(undefined);

  const pickImageAsync = async () => {
    let result = await ImagePicker.launchImageLibraryAsync({
      mediaTypes: ['images'],
      allowsEditing: true,
      quality: 1,
    });

    if (!result.canceled) {
      setSelectedImage(result.assets[0].uri);
    } else {
      alert('You did not select any image.');
    }
  };

  return (
    <View style={styles.container}>
      <View style={styles.imageContainer}>
        <ImageViewer imgSource={PlaceholderImage} selectedImage={selectedImage} />
      </View>
      <View style={styles.footerContainer}>
        <Button theme="primary" label="Choose a photo" onPress={pickImageAsync} />
        <Button label="Use this photo" />
      </View>
    </View>
  );
}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
    backgroundColor: '#25292e',
    alignItems: 'center',
  },
  imageContainer: {
    flex: 1,
  },
  footerContainer: {
    flex: 1 / 3,
    alignItems: 'center',
  },
});

Pass the selectedImage prop to the ImageViewer component to display the selected image instead of a placeholder image.

Modify the components/ImageViewer.tsx file to accept the selectedImage prop.
The source of the image is getting long, so let's also move it to a separate variable called imageSource.
Pass imageSource as the value of the source prop on the Image component.

components/ImageViewer.tsx

import { StyleSheet } from 'react-native';
import { Image, type ImageSource } from "expo-image";

type Props = {
  imgSource: ImageSource;
  selectedImage?: string;
};

export default function ImageViewer({ imgSource, selectedImage }: Props) {
  const imageSource = selectedImage ? { uri: selectedImage } : imgSource;

  return <Image source={imageSource} style={styles.image} />;
}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  image: {
    width: 320,
    height: 440,
    borderRadius: 18,
  },
});

In the above snippet, the Image component uses a conditional operator to load the image's source. The picked image is a uri string, not a local asset like the placeholder image.

Let's take a look at our app now:

The images used for the example app in this tutorial were picked from Unsplash.

Summary

Chapter 4: Use an image picker

We've successfully added the functionality to pick an image from the device's media library.

Mark this chapter as read

In the next chapter, we'll learn how to create an emoji picker modal component.

Next: Create an emoji picker modal