Sharing on Android

This guide details how to enable sharing from your Android app to Facebook. When someone shares from your app, their content appears on their Timeline and may appear in their friends' News Feeds.

People can also share content from your app to Facebook Messenger.

Prerequisites

Before you can share to Facebook from your app, you to link or download the Facebook Sharing SDK for Android.

The Sharing SDK for Android is a component of the Facebook SDK for Android. To use the Facebook Sharing SDK in your project, make it a dependency in Maven, or download it. Choose the method you prefer with the following button.

SDK: MAVEN

Link the SDK with Maven

In your project, open your_app | Gradle Scripts | build.gradle (Project) and add the following repository to the buildscript { repositories {}} section to download the SDK from the Maven Central Repository:
```
mavenCentral() 
```
In your project, open your_app | Gradle Scripts | build.gradle (Module: app) and add the following compile statement to the dependencies{} section to compile the latest version of the SDK:
```
compile 'com.facebook.android:facebook-share:[5,6)'
```
Build your project.

Download the SDK

To download the SDK, click the following button.

Download SDK

When you use the Facebook Sharing SDK, events in your app are automatically logged and collected for Facebook Analytics unless you disable automatic event logging. For details about what information is collected and how to disable automatic event logging, see Automatic App Event Logging.

Further Prerequisites

In addition, you need to do the following:

Get a Facebook App ID properly configured and linked to your Android app. See Android Getting Started, Add Facebook App ID
Generate an Android Key Hash and add it to your developer profile
Add a Facebook Activity and include it in your AndroidManifest.xml

For details on these requirements, see Android - Getting Started.

You also need to set up a ContentProvider in your AndroidManifest.xml where {APP_ID} is your app ID:

<provider android:authorities="com.facebook.app.FacebookContentProvider{APP_ID}"
          android:name="com.facebook.FacebookContentProvider"
          android:exported="true"/>

When you implement sharing, your app should not pre-fill any content to be shared. This is inconsistent with Facebook Platform Policy, see Developer Policies.

Modeling Content

Versions 4.0+ of the Facebook SDKs have new models for sharing content. Each type of content people want to share has a class you can use to represent it. After you model the content, add a sharing interface to your app.

Links

When people share links from your app to Facebook, it includes a contentURL with the link to be shared. Build your share content for links into the ShareLinkContent model. For a list of all attributes, see ShareLinkContent reference.

Here's an example of how you can trigger the share:

ShareLinkContent content = new ShareLinkContent.Builder()
        .setContentUrl(Uri.parse("https://developers.facebook.com"))
        .build();

To preview a link share to Google Play or the App Store, enter your URL into the Sharing Debugger.

If your app share contains a link to any app on Google Play or the App Store, the description and image included in the share will be ignored. Instead, we will scrape the store directly for that app's title and image (and if there is no image, the share won't include one).

Photos

People can share photos from your app to Facebook with the Share Dialog. In order to share, they must have the native Facebook for Android app installed, version 7.0 or higher.

Build your share content for photos into the SharePhotoContent model. For a list of all attributes, see SharePhotoContent reference.

Bitmap image = ...
SharePhoto photo = new SharePhoto.Builder()
        .setBitmap(image)
        .build();
SharePhotoContent content = new SharePhotoContent.Builder()
        .addPhoto(photo)
        .build();

Videos

People using your app can share videos to Facebook with the Share dialog.

Build your share content for videos into the ShareVideoContent model. For a list of all attributes, see ShareVideoContent reference.

Uri videoFileUri = ...
ShareVideo = new ShareVideo.Builder()
        .setLocalUrl(videoUrl)
        .build();
ShareVideoContent content = new ShareVideoContent.Builder()
        .setVideo(video)
        .build();

Multimedia

People can share a combination of photos and videos from your app to Facebook with the Share Dialog. Note the following:

People need the native Facebook for Android app installed, version 71 or higher.
People can share a maximum of 6 photos and videos at a time.

Build your multimedia share content with the ShareMediaContent model. For a list of all attributes, see ShareMediaContent reference.

SharePhoto sharePhoto1 = new SharePhoto.Builder()
    .setBitmap(...)
    .build();
SharePhoto sharePhoto2 = new SharePhoto.Builder()
    .setBitmap(...)
    .build();
ShareVideo shareVideo1 = new ShareVideo.Builder()
    .setLocalUrl(...)
    .build();
ShareVideo shareVideo2 = new ShareVideo.Builder()
    .setLocalUrl(...)
    .build();

ShareContent shareContent = new ShareMediaContent.Builder()
    .addMedium(sharePhoto1)
    .addMedium(sharePhoto2)
    .addMedium(shareVideo1)
    .addMedium(shareVideo2)
    .build();

ShareDialog shareDialog = new ShareDialog(...);
shareDialog.show(shareContent, Mode.AUTOMATIC);

Add Sharing Interfaces

After you handle content by building a model, trigger a Facebook sharing interface.

Buttons

Facebook offers native buttons for Android for triggering sharing.

Share Button

The Share button will call a Share dialog. To add a Share button add the following code snippet to your view:

ShareButton shareButton = (ShareButton)findViewById(R.id.fb_share_button);
shareButton.setShareContent(content);

Share Dialog

The Share dialog switches to the native Facebook for Android app, then returns control to your app after a post is published. Depending on the SDK you're using, people may need tap the back arrow icon to return to your app. If the Facebook app is not installed, the Share dialog automatically falls back to the web-based dialog.

ShareDialog.show(activityOrFragment, content);

For example, to show the ShareDialog for a link in your activity, create a ShareDialog instance in your onCreate method:

public class MainActivity extends FragmentActivity {
    CallbackManager callbackManager;
    ShareDialog shareDialog;
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        callbackManager = CallbackManager.Factory.create();
        shareDialog = new ShareDialog(this);
        // this part is optional
        shareDialog.registerCallback(callbackManager, new FacebookCallback<Sharer.Result>() { ... });
    }

Then show the ShareDialog:

if (ShareDialog.canShow(ShareLinkContent.class)) {
    ShareLinkContent linkContent = new ShareLinkContent.Builder()
            .setContentUrl(Uri.parse("http://developers.facebook.com/android"))
            .build();
    shareDialog.show(linkContent);
}

Finally call the SDK's callbackManager in your onActivityResult to handle the response:

@Override
protected void onActivityResult(final int requestCode, final int resultCode, final Intent data) {
    super.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultCode, data);
    callbackManager.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultCode, data);
}

Message Dialog

The Message dialog switches to the native Messenger for Android app, then returns control to your app after a post is published. Depending on the SDK you're using, people may need tap the back arrow icon to return to your app.

MessageDialog.show(activityOrFragment, content);

Additional Features

When you use the Facebook share dialog, you have additional options that aren't available when you share by using the API.

Hashtags

You can specify a single hashtag to appear with a shared photo, link, or video. This hashtag also appears in the Share dialog, and people have the the opportunity to remove it before publishing.

The following is an example of adding a hashtag to a link share.

ShareLinkContent content = new ShareLinkContent.Builder()
        .setContentUrl(Uri.parse("https://developers.facebook.com"))
        .setShareHashtag(new ShareHashtag.Builder()
                .setHashtag("#ConnectTheWorld")
                .build());
        .build();

Quote Sharing

You can enable people to highlight text to appear as a quote with a shared link. Alternatively, you can predefine a quote, for example, a pull quote in an article, to appear with the shared link. In either case, the quote appears in its own field separate from the user comments.

ShareLinkContent content = new ShareLinkContent.Builder()
        .setContentUrl(Uri.parse("https://developers.facebook.com"))
        .setQuote("Connect on a global scale.")
        .build();

Advanced Topics

Built-In Share Fallbacks

In past versions of the SDK for Android, your app had to check for a native, installed Facebook app before it could open the Share Dialog. If the person didn't have the app installed, you had to provide your own code to call a fallback dialog.

Now the SDK automatically checks for the native Facebook app. If it isn't installed, the SDK switches people to their default browser and opens the Feed Dialog.

App Links

With App Links you link back to your app from Facebook posts published from your app. When people click a Facebook post published from your app, it opens your app, and you can even link to specific content within the app.