UIDocumentPickerViewController with kUTTypeFolder - All 3rd party providers are greyed out

Question

Created Jul ’19

Replies 8

Boosts 0

Views 2.7k

Participants 7

When I use the UIDocumentPickerViewController with kUTTypeFolder I am only able to pick from the providers built-in to iOS/iPad OS, such as On My iPad, iCloud Drive, network shares and USB drives. As of beta 4, 3rd party providers are shown, but disabled (not selectable or browsable).

I have not been able to find any information on whether or not 3rd party providers will be supported by the release of iPad OS 13. I am hoping this will be possible in a future build (or at least something 3rd party providers can enable) since this is a big driving factor for enabling us to ditch a *lot* of custom cloud storage code.

Any info (or if anyone knows either way) would be much appreciated!

Answered by litkyle in 391697022

I have been instructed by DTS to file a bug report for this. For anyone else affected by this issue -- PLEASE file your own bug report so this can be properly escalated (e.g. looked at sooner than with only one report): https://feedbackassistant.apple.com

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Answer 1

fabio208 OP

Oct ’19

same for me...even with shouldShowFileExtensions property to true.

Are you able to read the contents of a file?

0

Answer 2

litkyle OP

Oct ’19

I am able to read folders picked from "On My iPad", "iCloud Drive", USB drives and SMB shares. The only issue I have is not being able to pick a folder from 3rd party providers like Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, PDF Export, and so on.

All 3rd party providers are greyed out, even though the documentation says: "With iOS 13, users can select a directory from any of the available file providers using a

UIDocumentPickerViewController

." I have not found any mention of exceptions to this, so I am at a loss as to if this is an intended limitation, or if there are some additional steps I need to take to enable selecting a folder from a 3rd party provider.

0

Answer 3

litkyle OP

Oct ’19

Accepted Answer

I have been instructed by DTS to file a bug report for this. For anyone else affected by this issue -- PLEASE file your own bug report so this can be properly escalated (e.g. looked at sooner than with only one report): https://feedbackassistant.apple.com

3

Answer 4

J0hn OP

Jul ’20

Yeah, this has been a problem for a while now. I’ve thought that it was an issue with Dropbox or Google, but I’ll go ahead and file a bug now for it.

3

Answer 5

Tomeu Masco OP

Nov ’20

I have the same problem. I will also send a bug report.

2

Answer 6

yellow8 OP

Aug ’21

Bug report sent as well.

2

Answer 7

myintruder OP

Jul ’23

Bug report sent as well.

Is there any hope that Apple will ever fix this? User of my app are complaining that they can't access 3rd party storage, and I keep telling that to wait for Apple since more that 3 years.

1

Answer 8

palmin OP

Dec ’23

This has been supported for a while and you can find some information here: https://twitter.com/palmin/status/1177860144258076673?s=20

I make a Git & SSH client where the Files locations support folder picking this way.

Since iOS 16 it has also been possible to implement NSFileProviderReplicatedExtension which makes folder picking possible with less work and responsibility from the 3rd party app. I have two other apps doing this.

1