About picture-in-picture (PiP)

Picture-in-picture (PiP) is a special type of multi-window mode mostly used for video playback. It lets the user watch a video in a small window pinned to a corner of the screen while navigating between apps or browsing content on the main screen.

PiP leverages the multi-window APIs made available in Android 7.0 to provide the pinned video overlay window. To add PiP to your app, you need to register your activity, switch your activity to PiP mode as needed, and make sure UI elements are hidden and video playback continues when the activity is in PiP mode.

Handle your UI in PiP mode

When you enter PiP mode, your app's entire UI enters the PiP window unless you specify how your UI should look in and out of PiP mode.

First, you need to know when your app is in PiP mode or not. You can use OnPictureInPictureModeChangedProvider to achieve this. The code below tells you if your app is in PiP mode.

@Composable
fun rememberIsInPipMode(): Boolean {
    if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.O) {
        val activity = LocalContext.current.findActivity()
        var pipMode by remember { mutableStateOf(activity.isInPictureInPictureMode) }
        DisposableEffect(activity) {
            val observer = Consumer<PictureInPictureModeChangedInfo> { info ->
                pipMode = info.isInPictureInPictureMode
            }
            activity.addOnPictureInPictureModeChangedListener(
                observer
            )
            onDispose { activity.removeOnPictureInPictureModeChangedListener(observer) }
        }
        return pipMode
    } else {
        return false
    }
}
PictureInPictureSnippets.kt

Now, you can use rememberIsInPipMode() to toggle which UI elements to show when the app enters PiP mode:

val inPipMode = rememberIsInPipMode()

Column(modifier = modifier) {
    // This text will only show up when the app is not in PiP mode
    if (!inPipMode) {
        Text(
            text = "Picture in Picture",
        )
    }
    VideoPlayer()
}
PictureInPictureSnippets.kt