Return back to MainActivity from another activity

Question

The MainActivity contains some buttons. Each button opens a new activity via an intent. These activities then have a button to return to the MainActivity via an intent.

But when I press a button to return to the MainActivity, I get some sort of menu on the screen! Someone who knows what could be wrong? Preciate some help! Thanks!

EDIT: The return button in one of the other activities:

Button btnReturn1 = (Button) findViewById(R.id.btnReturn1);
btnReturn1.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {      
    public void onClick(View v) {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub
        Intent returnBtn = new Intent("android.intent.action.MAIN");
        startActivity(returnBtn);
    }
});

The Manifest:

<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
package="com.kullaberg.test02"
android:versionCode="1"
android:versionName="1.0" >

<uses-sdk
    android:minSdkVersion="10"
    android:targetSdkVersion="15" />

<application
    android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
    android:label="@string/app_name"
    android:theme="@style/AppTheme" >
    <activity
        android:name=".MainActivity"
        android:label="@string/title_activity_main" >
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

            <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
        </intent-filter>
    </activity>
    <activity
        android:name=".Activity1"
        android:label="@string/title_activity_main" >
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="android.intent.action.ACTIVITY001" />

            <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
        </intent-filter>
    </activity>
    <activity
        android:name=".Activity2"
        android:label="@string/title_activity_main" >
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="android.intent.action.ACTIVITY002" />

            <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
        </intent-filter>
    </activity>
    <activity
        android:name=".Activity3"
        android:label="@string/title_activity_main" >
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="android.intent.action.ACTIVITY003" />

            <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
        </intent-filter>
    </activity>
</application>

provide screenshot , log and some code, because it is hard to understand based on your explaination..... — Pragnani, Feb 13 '13 at 07:41
I don't think a screenshot would help that much since that is in swedish :) — 3D-kreativ, Feb 13 '13 at 07:44
are you calling an activity for which setContentView(Blabla.xml) is not set — Auto-Droid ツ, Feb 13 '13 at 07:49
Intent returnBtn = new Intent(this,MainScreen.class); startActivity(returnBtn); finish(); — Auto-Droid ツ, Feb 13 '13 at 07:52

score 58 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 13 '13 at 08:00

58

why don't you call finish();

when you want to return to MainActivity

   btnReturn1.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
    public void onClick(View v) {
        finish();
    }
});

answered Feb 13 '13 at 08:00

Intathep

3,378
2
21
28

Very nice..Thanks :) – CandleCoder Jan 13 '16 at 09:08
26

finish() actually does not help return to MainActivity, it just closes the current activity – Bibaswann Bandyopadhyay Feb 10 '16 at 11:07
1

finish() just destroy your current activity. – yubaraj poudel Jun 15 '16 at 10:04
1

It returns me to `Login` activity instead of `MainActivity` activity. – Francisco Romero Aug 24 '16 at 09:09

score 55 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 13 '13 at 16:03

Here's why you saw the menu with the code you listed in your onClick method:

You were creating an Intent with the constructor that takes a string for the action parameter of the Intent's IntentFilter. You passed "android.intent.action.MAIN" as the argument to that constructor, which specifies that the Intent can be satisfied by any Activity with an IntentFilter including <action="android.intent.action.MAIN">.

When you called startActivity with that Intent, you effectively told the Android OS to go find an Activity (in any app installed on the system) that specifies the android.intent.action.MAIN action. When there are multiple Activities that qualify (and there are in this case since every app will have a main Activity with an IntentFilter including the "android.intent.action.MAIN" action), the OS presents a menu to let the user choose which app to use.

As to the question of how to get back to your main activity, as with most things, it depends on the specifics of your app. While the accepted answer probably worked in your case, I don't think it's the best solution, and it's probably encouraging you to use a non-idiomatic UI in your Android app. If your Button's onClick() method contains only a call to finish() then you should most likely remove the Button from the UI and just let the user push the hardware/software back button, which has the same functionality and is idiomatic for Android. (You'll often see back Buttons used to emulate the behavior of an iOS UINavigationController navigationBar which is discouraged in Android apps).

If your main activity launches a stack of Activities and you want to provide an easy way to get back to the main activity without repeatedly pressing the back button, then you want to call startActivity after setting the flag Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP which will close all the Activities in the call stack which are above your main activity and bring your main activity to the top of the call stack. See below (assuming your main activity subclass is called MainActivity:

btnReturn1.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
    public void onClick(View v) {
        Intent i=new Intent(this, MainActivity.class);
        i.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
        startActivity(i);
    }
)};

Very good explanation! For my "return to MainActivity" needs, `startActivity(new Intent(this, MainActivity.class).setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP));` worked perfectly. — Jonik, Oct 30 '13 at 20:50
It could be very nice if you explain when we need to use `finish()`. — PhoneixS, Jun 06 '14 at 14:42
You can use `finish()` any time you want to close an Activity. While I suggested not to include a Back button because it's just not necessary on Android and may clutter your UI, it's possible to do so, and there a number of scenarios where you might want to have a widget respond to a touch by doing something and then calling `finish()` an Activity. — Brian Cooley, Sep 30 '14 at 20:49
This doesn't actually go back to MainActivity, it starts MainActivity. I'm looking for something that will go back to MainActivity in its current state not start a new activity. — Lance, May 19 '21 at 16:33

Dipin · Answer 3 · 2013-02-13T12:13:35.430

18

use

Intent returnBtn = new Intent(getApplicationContext(),
                    MainActivity.class);

startActivity(returnBtn);

make the main activity's launchmode to singleTask in Android Manifest if you don't want to create new one every time.

android:launchMode="singleTask"

edited Feb 13 '13 at 12:13

answered Feb 13 '13 at 07:54

Dipin

1,085
6
19

1

This should be the correct answer. This works just like hitting the back button. It does not lose the main activity's state, while the other answer loses the activity's state. – live-love Sep 09 '18 at 22:36
1

Yup this should be the accepted answer. – harveyhans Sep 27 '21 at 16:45
I had to dig through plenty of different SO posts and finally scroll down to this answer to find what I was looking for. This should be the accepted answer. The clear top flag for the intent and this.finish() are both unnecessary, as far as I can tell. – Zeek Aran Aug 21 '23 at 18:36

score 13 · Answer 4 · edited Feb 08 '16 at 13:38

13

I'm used it and worked perfectly...

startActivity(new Intent(getApplicationContext(),MainActivity.class).setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP));

because Finish() use for 2 activities, not for multiple activities

edited Feb 08 '16 at 13:38

Gangaraju

4,406
9
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answered Feb 08 '16 at 12:56

Rahmada

131
1
2

score 10 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 25 '16 at 17:09

10

This usually works as well :)

navigateUpTo(new Intent(getBaseContext(), MainActivity.class));

answered Jul 25 '16 at 17:09

Jonathan Persgarden

260
4
9

Works very well. Note, you need to call `navigateUpTo` from an `Activity` or `Context`. – Joshua Pinter Jul 21 '19 at 16:20

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 13 '13 at 08:00

2

instead of starting MainActivity again via startActivity, call finish() instead in the other activities to get back to MainActivity... as MainActivity is already in stack

answered Feb 13 '13 at 08:00

baboo

1,983
17
23

score 1 · Answer 7 · edited Feb 13 '13 at 09:54

1

Use this code on button click in activity and When return back to another activity just finish previous activity by setting flag in intent then put only one Activity in the Stack and destroy the previous one.

  Intent i=new Intent("this","YourClassName.Class");
  i.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
  startActivity(i);

edited Feb 13 '13 at 09:54

Manish Dubey

4,206
8
36
65

answered Feb 13 '13 at 08:06

akash yadav

349
4
14

Could you add some comments to your code? It helps the OP and other visitors to understand it. Check this [metaSO question](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/7656/how-do-i-write-a-good-answer-to-a-question) and [Jon Skeet: Coding Blog](http://msmvps.com/blogs/jon_skeet/archive/2009/02/17/answering-technical-questions-helpfully.aspx) on how to give a correct answer. – Yaroslav Feb 13 '13 at 08:27

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Oct 13 '14 at 10:51

I highly recommend reading the docs on the Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP flag. Using it will not necessarily go back all the way to the first (main) activity. The flag will only remove all existing activities up to the activity class given in the Intent. This is explained well in the docs:

For example, consider a task consisting of the activities: A, B, C, D.
If D calls startActivity() with an Intent that resolves to the component of
activity B, then C and D will be finished and B receive the given Intent, 
resulting in the stack now being: A, B.

Note that the activity can set to be moved to the foreground (i.e., clearing all other activities on top of it), and then also being relaunched, or only get onNewIntent() method called.

Source

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Nov 10 '21 at 15:26

0

I just do this way

public void retorna(View view)
    {
        Intent muda = new Intent(getApplicationContext(),MainActivity.class);

        muda.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
       
        startActivity(muda);
   }

answered Nov 10 '21 at 15:26

eliezerBrasilian

1

Your answer could be improved with additional supporting information. Please [edit] to add further details, such as citations or documentation, so that others can confirm that your answer is correct. You can find more information on how to write good answers [in the help center](/help/how-to-answer). – Community Nov 10 '21 at 16:09
While this code may answer the question, providing additional context regarding why and/or how this code answers the question improves its long-term value. – Abhishek Dutt Nov 10 '21 at 16:11

Return back to MainActivity from another activity

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