Question

wasnt really sure what words to query in google, so im just going to ask this question.

What happens to an activity when i start another activity?

Lets say I am currently on activity A, then from a, i called a function to startService a new intent that opens activity B. What happens to the lifecycle of A? is it destroyed? stopped?

Subquestion. If the activity is paused, how do i call/open it back from the newly started activity?

Answer 1

Activity A is paused, then stopped – both the onPause() & onStop() methods are called, but onDestroy() is not called. The Activity still remains in the back stack.

Quoting the Android documentation:

Activity Lifecycle

Activities in the system are managed as an activity stack. When a new
activity is started, it is placed on the top of the stack and becomes
the running activity — the previous activity always remains below it
in the stack, and will not come to the foreground again until the new
activity exits.