Android Attaching a file to GMAIL - Can't attach empty file

Ok, got it to work now, after a lot of research and intercepting some Intents.

What I had to do was change the file:/// to content://.

I did this following this information from Android: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/support/v4/content/FileProvider.html

The only major change was that I used a hard-coded path to /sdcard/file.ext. Also, the line

getUriForFile(getContext(), "com.mydomain.fileprovider", newFile);

was changed to

Uri contentUri = FileProvider.getUriForFile(this, "com.mydomain.fileprovider", newFile);

Also had to include:

intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_GRANT_READ_URI_PERMISSION);
intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_GRANT_WRITE_URI_PERMISSION);
i.setData(contentUri);

I do not really understand why I had to change from File to Content, but after this, the file is now being attached again! See the link if you face this issue, and don't forget about the new .xml that needs to be created.

See the following question:

android-6-cannot-share-files-anymore

This behavior is with Android 6.0 and Gmail. Please see the following thread.

Issue 3141 - android-developer-preview

If you go to Settings->Apps->Gmail->Permissions and enable the "Storage" permission manually, then the share works.

Gmail should ask for "Storage" permission in this scenario and it would work as it did in all the past version of Android.

Other email apps should handle attachments correctly.

Here is how to fix it.

Go to Settings -> Apps -> Gmail -> Permissions Turn on the permission for "Storage" That work-around solved the issue for me.