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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-16T19:31:12+00:00

I want to save some small data structures (~1kB total), as well as the

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I want to save some small data structures (~1kB total), as well as the user’s preferences, while my app is closed. The settings are modified only in my PreferenceActivity, but the data structures are modified in pretty much every activity. I’ve extended Application and made all the data structures and preferences static. I’ve then tried saving to SharedPreferences in my application class’s onTerminate() and loading it again in onCreate(). However, onTerminate()‘s documentation states that “It will never be called on a production Android device, where processes are removed by simply killing them”.

Answers to this question suggest saving to SharedPreferences in the onStop() method of each activity modifying their data. Will this guarantee that the data is saved in all cases? Is there a way to avoid the waste of saving every time the user transitions between activities (or should I even care)?

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  1. Editorial Team

    I would honestly just save in the onPause() of each activity as is recommended by Android (i.e. when you write an email notice how the draft is saved when the app pauses, such as if the screen turns off). Unless you notice that it is causing lags/delays, it probably won’t matter too much.

    If you do notice lags with this “autosave” method, then you should probably have some sort of “Save” functionality implemented in each activity, which could, for example, entail using a ProgressDialog / AsyncTask combination.

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