Album Art

The IMediaLibrary.GetAlbumArtPathAsync method retrieves album artwork for a track and returns it as a file path that can be used directly as an image source.

Basic Usage

var artPath = await _library.GetAlbumArtPathAsync(track.Id);

if (artPath != null)
{
    // Use in MAUI
    var imageSource = ImageSource.FromFile(artPath);
}

The method returns null if no artwork is available for the track.

Using in XAML

You can bind album art in your view model and use it as an ImageSource:

// In your ViewModel
public async Task LoadAlbumArt(string trackId)
{
    var path = await _library.GetAlbumArtPathAsync(trackId);
    AlbumArtSource = path != null ? ImageSource.FromFile(path) : null;
}

<!-- In your XAML -->
<Image Source="{Binding AlbumArtSource}"
       WidthRequest="300"
       HeightRequest="300"
       Aspect="AspectFill" />

Platform Behavior

Android

Returns the content URI for the album art from MediaStore (content://media/external/audio/albumart/{albumId}). This URI can be used directly with MAUI’s image loading.

iOS

iOS does not expose album art as a URI. Instead, GetAlbumArtPathAsync:

1. Retrieves the MPMediaItem.Artwork image object
2. Renders it at 600x600 pixels
3. Encodes it as JPEG (85% quality)
4. Saves it to the app’s caches directory (Library/Caches/albumart/{trackId}.jpg)
5. Returns the cached file path

Subsequent calls for the same track return the cached file without re-rendering.

Note

The artwork is cached in the system caches directory, which iOS may purge when storage is low. This is the correct behavior — artwork can always be re-generated from the media library.