Directory picker

Let users pick a folder with the native directory dialog

openDirectoryPicker shows the platform’s native folder dialog and returns the selected folder as a PlatformFile.

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Usage

Compose

val launcher = rememberDirectoryPickerLauncher(
    onError = { failure -> showError(failure.message) },
) { directory ->
    // directory is a PlatformFile, or null when the user cancelled
}

Button(onClick = { launcher.launch() }) {
    Text("Pick a folder")
}

The result is null when the user cancels. Failures go to onError in Compose, or are thrown as a FileKitDialogException by the suspend API. See Results and errors.

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Try it

This is the FileKit sample running in your browser. Pick a folder to browse its contents as a tree, then open a file to inspect its metadata.

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Options

In Compose, pass these options to rememberDirectoryPickerLauncher. launch() takes no arguments.

directory · PlatformFile? · default: "null"

Folder the dialog opens in. Ignored on the web.

dialogSettings · FileKitDialogSettings · default: "createDefault()"

Title, parent window, and other per-platform settings.

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Read the folder’s contents

Call list() for the direct children or walk() for the whole tree. See File operations.

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Keep access across launches

A picked folder is only accessible for the current session on Android and Apple platforms. Save its bookmark to reopen it after a restart:

nonWebMain

val directory = FileKit.openDirectoryPicker() ?: return
val bookmark = directory.bookmarkData()
saveBytes("project_folder", bookmark.bytes)

// After a restart
val restored = PlatformFile.fromBookmarkData(loadBytes("project_folder"))

saveBytes and loadBytes stand for your own storage. See Bookmark data for invalid bookmarks and security-scoped access on Apple platforms.

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Platform notes

Platform	Behavior
Android	Storage Access Framework tree picker. The result is a content:// tree URI.
iOS	UIDocumentPickerViewController in folder mode.
macOS	NSOpenPanel configured for folders.
JVM	Native dialog on macOS and Windows, and the XDG Desktop Portal on Linux with a Swing fallback when no portal runs.
Linux native	XDG Desktop Portal only, with no fallback dialog. See Linux setup.
Windows native	IFileDialog in folder mode.
Web	Browsers expose the folder as a flat file list, so FileKit rebuilds a read-only tree from relative paths. Empty subfolders are missing, folders report a lastModified() of epoch 0, and an empty folder returns null, like a cancellation.

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Related

• Bookmark data to keep access to the folder.
• Results and errors for cancellation and failure handling.