Android: open activity without save into the stack

Question

I have 2 activities: Main and List.

From Main you can open List; from List you can open Main.

I\'d like it so that every opening of List does not

Answer 1

When starting your list's Activity, set its Intent flags like so:

Intent i = new Intent(...); // Your list's Intent
i.setFlags(i.getFlags() | Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_HISTORY); // Adds the FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_HISTORY flag
startActivity(i);

The FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_HISTORY flag keeps the new Activity from being added to the history stack.

NB: As @Sam points out, you can use i.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_HISTORY); instead. There is no functional difference.

Answer 2

Use the new task with clearing. This worked in my case when the other options didnt.

intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK | Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK);

Clear the entire history stack and start a new activity on Android

Answer 3

In my particular case FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_HISTORY did not work. Neither did FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK or FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK alone by themselves work.

However FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK and FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK together did work.

Intent intent = new Intent(FooActivity.this, MainActivity.class);
intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK | Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK);
startActivity(intent);

Answer 4

Can you not override the back button on the particular activity to stop the 'return' functionality?

@Override
public boolean onKeyDown(int keyCode, KeyEvent event) {
    if (keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_BACK) {

        return true;
    }
    return super.onKeyDown(keyCode, event);
}