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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-14T00:31:13+00:00

My question is about restoring complex activity related data when coming back to the

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My question is about restoring complex activity related data when coming back to the activity using the “back” button”.
Activity A has a ListView which is connected to ArrayAdapter serving as its data source – this happens in onCreate().

  1. By default, if I move to activity B and press “back” to get back to activity A, does my list stay intact with all the data or do I just get visual “copy” of the screen but the data is lost?
  2. What can I do when more than activities are involved? Let’s say activity A starts activity B which starts activity C and then I press “back” twice to get to A. How do I ensure the integrity of the A’s data when it gets back to the foreground? PrefsManager does not seem to handle complex object very intuitively.

Thanks, Rob

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Activity A has a ListView which is
    connected to ArrayAdapter serving as
    its data source

    Note that an ArrayAdapter is not a persistent store.

    By default, if I move to activity B
    and press “back” to get back to
    activity A, does my list stay intact
    with all the data or do I just get
    visual “copy” of the screen but the
    data is lost?

    That depends.

    Typically, Activity A has not gone anywhere. However, if the user leaves the app for an extended period, Android may destroy Activity A, leaving a placeholder in the activity stack, to free up memory. If, later, the user presses BACK, Android will re-create Activity A. You need to hang onto your data in this case, either by using a persistent store (file, database, etc.) or by using onSaveInstanceState() and onRestoreInstanceState().

    You can find more in the Activity Lifecycle section of the Activity class description.

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