How to save image into Photos

I recently needed to save an image into the Photos library. However most approaches I found on the web used the crazy method from ObjC times..

UIImageWriteToSavedPhotosAlbum(image: UIImage, completionTarget: Any?, completionSelector: Selector?, contextInfo: UnsafeMutableRawPointer?)

You are supposed to create another method that will be called after this finishes. 🥴

Thankfully I found method that uses PHPhotoLibrary and has a few benefits. So this post is there mainly for myself for next time I need to save something to Apple Photos library.

Preparation

To use the PHPhotoLibrary you need to import Photos and modify your Info.plist.

In your Info.plist add the key NSPhotoLibraryAddUsageDescription. This assumes you are only going to save stuff, not read or modify the existing.

Saving UIImage to Photos

And next if you have an UIImage, you can save it like this:

PHPhotoLibrary.shared().performChanges {
    _ = PHAssetChangeRequest.creationRequestForAsset(from: image)

} completionHandler: { (success, error) in

}

You only have to create the request and it will save the image thanks to the performChanges block. In the real world, you would also need to implement the completion handler 🙂

Saving image from file to Photos

This approach has the benefit that you can also provide a URL for the image instead. You don't have to load the data into UIImage and this will also keep all the available metadata, as Apple notes in the docs.

_ = PHAssetChangeRequest.creationRequestForAssetFromImage(atFileURL: imageUrl)

Saving videos

Want to save video to Photos library? No problem. Use the same approach above, just with different creation request:

_ = PHAssetChangeRequest.creationRequestForAssetFromVideo(atFileURL: videoUrl)

And that's basic saving into Photos library done.