How to detect when an Android app goes to the background and come back to the foreground

Question

I am trying to write an app that does something specific when it is brought back to the foreground after some amount of time. Is there a way to detect when an app is sent to

Answer 1

i know its a little late but i think all these answers do have some problems while i did it like below and that works perfect.

create a activity life cycle callback like this:

 class ActivityLifeCycle implements ActivityLifecycleCallbacks{

    @Override
    public void onActivityCreated(Activity activity, Bundle savedInstanceState) {

    }

    @Override
    public void onActivityStarted(Activity activity) {

    }

    Activity lastActivity;
    @Override
    public void onActivityResumed(Activity activity) {
        //if (null == lastActivity || (activity != null && activity == lastActivity)) //use this condition instead if you want to be informed also when  app has been killed or started for the first time
        if (activity != null && activity == lastActivity) 
        {
            Toast.makeText(MyApp.this, "NOW!", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
        }

        lastActivity = activity;
    }

    @Override
    public void onActivityPaused(Activity activity) {

    }

    @Override
    public void onActivityStopped(Activity activity) {

    }

    @Override
    public void onActivitySaveInstanceState(Activity activity, Bundle outState) {

    }

    @Override
    public void onActivityDestroyed(Activity activity) {

    }
}

and just register it on your application class like below:

public class MyApp extends Application {

@Override
public void onCreate() {
    super.onCreate();
    registerActivityLifecycleCallbacks(new ActivityLifeCycle());
}