Dart/Flutter – Encode/Decode Image to/from Base64 String

In this tutorial, I will show you how to encode Image file to Base64 & decode Base64 String to Image in Dart/Flutter using dart:convert library.

Related Posts:
Dart/Flutter Constructors tutorial with examples
Dart/Flutter String Methods & Operators tutorial with examples
Dart/Flutter List Tutorial with Examples
Dart/Flutter Map Tutorial with Examples

Overview

1. Encode Image to Base64

There are two steps to encode an Image file to Base64 String:

  • convert our Image file to bytes with the help of dart:io library.
  • import 'dart:io' as Io;
    
    final bytes = await Io.File(image).readAsBytes();
    // or
    final bytes = Io.File(image).readAsBytesSync();
    
  • use dart:convert library base64Encode() function to encode bytes to Base64.
  • It is the shorthand for base64.encode().

    String base64Encode(List<int> bytes) => base64.encode(bytes);
    

2. Decode Base64 to Image

To convert a Base64 String into Image, we need to do 2 steps:

  • use base64Decode() function which is shorthand for base64.decode() to decode Base64 to bytes.
  • Uint8List base64Decode(String source) => base64.decode(source);
    
  • write the bytes to Image file using dart:io writeAsBytes() or writeAsBytesSync().
  • import 'dart:io' as Io;
    
    var file = Io.File(image);
    
    await file.writeAsBytes(bytes);
    // or
    file.writeAsBytesSync(bytes);
    

Practice

1. Encode Image to Base64

import 'dart:io' as Io;
import 'dart:convert';

main() {
  final bytes = Io.File('bezkoder.png').readAsBytesSync();

  String img64 = base64Encode(bytes);
  print(img64.substring(0, 100));  
}

Output:

iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAABAAAAAQACAMAAABIw9uxAAADAFBMVEX///8PDxEHBwkODhAQEBIFBQcTExUGBggRERMSEhQICAoa

2. Decode Base64 String to Image

import 'dart:io' as Io;
import 'dart:convert';

main() {
  // img64 = iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAB...
  final decodedBytes = base64Decode(img64);

  var file = Io.File("decodedBezkoder.png");
  file.writeAsBytesSync(decodedBytes);
}

Check decodedBezkoder.png, you can see that it is the same as bezkoder.png.

Further Reading

Related Posts:
Dart/Flutter Constructors tutorial with examples
Dart/Flutter String Methods & Operators tutorial with examples
Dart/Flutter List Tutorial with Examples
Dart/Flutter Map Tutorial with Examples

10 thoughts to “Dart/Flutter – Encode/Decode Image to/from Base64 String”

  1. Thank you for your tutorial! It is really useful. Still, I am facing an issue when loading my images from my assets list. For instance, in my assets I have a list of local images I need to use:
    assets:
    – assets/google_logo.png
    – etc…
    When trying to open the image, it does not find the image on the path. To surpass that, I have used rootBundle.loadString with the imagem path in the assests (‘assets/’ + image name).

    Now, when I try to open it, it complains about non utf-8 file. Any clues on what I am doing wrong?
    Thanks once again!

  2. Thank you for this tutorial. It’s not long but useful for me to work with Base64 image in Dart.

Comments are closed to reduce spam. If you have any question, please send me an email.