Get a result from an activity

Starting another activity, whether it is one within your app or from another app, doesn't need to be a one-way operation. You can also start an activity and receive a result back. For example, your app can start a camera app and receive the captured photo as a result. Or you might start the Contacts app for the user to select a contact, and then receive the contact details as a result.

While the underlying startActivityForResult() and onActivityResult() APIs are available on the Activity class on all API levels, Google strongly recommends using the Activity Result APIs introduced in AndroidX Activity and Fragment classes.

The Activity Result APIs provide components for registering for a result, launching the activity that produces the result, and handling the result once it is dispatched by the system.

Register a callback for an activity result

When starting an activity for a result, it is possible—and, in cases of memory-intensive operations such as camera usage, almost certain—that your process and your activity will be destroyed due to low memory.

For this reason, the Activity Result APIs decouple the result callback from the place in your code where you launch the other activity. Because the result callback needs to be available when your process and activity are recreated, the callback must be unconditionally registered every time your activity is created, even if the logic of launching the other activity only happens based on user input or other business logic.

When in a ComponentActivity or a Fragment, the Activity Result APIs provide a registerForActivityResult() API for registering the result callback. registerForActivityResult() takes an ActivityResultContract and an ActivityResultCallback and returns an ActivityResultLauncher, which you use to launch the other activity.

An ActivityResultContract defines the input type needed to produce a result along with the output type of the result. The APIs provide default contracts for basic intent actions like taking a picture, requesting permissions, and so on. You can also create a custom contract.

ActivityResultCallback is a single method interface with an onActivityResult() method that takes an object of the output type defined in the ActivityResultContract:

val getContent = registerForActivityResult(GetContent()) { uri: Uri? ->
    // Handle the returned Uri
}

// GetContent creates an ActivityResultLauncher<String> to let you pass
// in the mime type you want to let the user select
ActivityResultLauncher<String> mGetContent = registerForActivityResult(new GetContent(),
    new ActivityResultCallback<Uri>() {
        @Override
        public void onActivityResult(Uri uri) {
            // Handle the returned Uri
        }
});

If you have multiple activity result calls and you either use different contracts or want separate callbacks, you can call registerForActivityResult() multiple times to register multiple ActivityResultLauncher instances. You must call registerForActivityResult() in the same order for each creation of your fragment or activity so that the inflight results are delivered to the correct callback.

registerForActivityResult() is safe to call before your fragment or activity is created, letting it be used directly when declaring member variables for the returned ActivityResultLauncher instances.

Launch an activity for result

While registerForActivityResult() registers your callback, it does not launch the other activity and kick off the request for a result. Instead, this is the responsibility of the returned ActivityResultLauncher instance.

If input exists, the launcher takes the input that matches the type of the ActivityResultContract. Calling launch() starts the process of producing the result. When the user is done with the subsequent activity and returns, the onActivityResult() from the ActivityResultCallback is then executed, as shown in the following example:

val getContent = registerForActivityResult(GetContent()) { uri: Uri? ->
    // Handle the returned Uri
}

override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
    // ...

    val selectButton = findViewById<Button>(R.id.select_button)

    selectButton.setOnClickListener {
        // Pass in the mime type you want to let the user select
        // as the input
        getContent.launch("image/*")
    }
}

ActivityResultLauncher<String> mGetContent = registerForActivityResult(new GetContent(),
    new ActivityResultCallback<Uri>() {
        @Override
        public void onActivityResult(Uri uri) {
            // Handle the returned Uri
        }
});

@Override
public void onCreate(@Nullable Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    // ...

    Button selectButton = findViewById(R.id.select_button);

    selectButton.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
        @Override
        public void onClick(View view) {
            // Pass in the mime type you want to let the user select
            // as the input
            mGetContent.launch("image/*");
        }
    });
}

An overloaded version of launch() lets you pass an ActivityOptionsCompat in addition to the input.

Receive an activity result in a separate class

While the ComponentActivity and Fragment classes implement the ActivityResultCaller interface to let you use the registerForActivityResult() APIs, you can also receive the activity result in a separate class that doesn't implement ActivityResultCaller by using ActivityResultRegistry directly.

For example, you might want to implement a LifecycleObserver that handles registering a contract along with launching the launcher:

class MyLifecycleObserver(private val registry : ActivityResultRegistry)
        : DefaultLifecycleObserver {
    lateinit var getContent : ActivityResultLauncher<String>

    override fun onCreate(owner: LifecycleOwner) {
        getContent = registry.register("key", owner, GetContent()) { uri ->
            // Handle the returned Uri
        }
    }

    fun selectImage() {
        getContent.launch("image/*")
    }
}

class MyFragment : Fragment() {
    lateinit var observer : MyLifecycleObserver

    override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        // ...

        observer = MyLifecycleObserver(requireActivity().activityResultRegistry)
        lifecycle.addObserver(observer)
    }

    override fun onViewCreated(view: View, savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        val selectButton = view.findViewById<Button>(R.id.select_button)

        selectButton.setOnClickListener {
            // Open the activity to select an image
            observer.selectImage()
        }
    }
}

class MyLifecycleObserver implements DefaultLifecycleObserver {
    private final ActivityResultRegistry mRegistry;
    private ActivityResultLauncher<String> mGetContent;

    MyLifecycleObserver(@NonNull ActivityResultRegistry registry) {
        mRegistry = registry;
    }

    public void onCreate(@NonNull LifecycleOwner owner) {
        // ...

        mGetContent = mRegistry.register(“key”, owner, new GetContent(),
            new ActivityResultCallback<Uri>() {
                @Override
                public void onActivityResult(Uri uri) {
                    // Handle the returned Uri
                }
            });
    }

    public void selectImage() {
        // Open the activity to select an image
        mGetContent.launch("image/*");
    }
}

class MyFragment extends Fragment {
    private MyLifecycleObserver mObserver;

    @Override
    void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        // ...

        mObserver = new MyLifecycleObserver(requireActivity().getActivityResultRegistry());
        getLifecycle().addObserver(mObserver);
    }

    @Override
    void onViewCreated(@NonNull View view, @Nullable Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        Button selectButton = findViewById(R.id.select_button);
        selectButton.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(View view) {
                mObserver.selectImage();
            }
        });
    }
}

When using the ActivityResultRegistry APIs, Google strongly recommends using the APIs that take a LifecycleOwner, as the LifecycleOwner automatically removes your registered launcher when the Lifecycle is destroyed. However, in cases where a LifecycleOwner isn't available, each ActivityResultLauncher class lets you manually call unregister() as an alternative.

Test

By default, registerForActivityResult() automatically uses the ActivityResultRegistry provided by the activity. It also provides an overload that lets you pass in your own instance of ActivityResultRegistry that you can use to test your activity result calls without actually launching another activity.

When testing your app’s fragments, you provide a test ActivityResultRegistry using a FragmentFactory to pass in the ActivityResultRegistry to the fragment’s constructor.

For example, a fragment that uses the TakePicturePreview contract to get a thumbnail of the image might be written similar to the following:

class MyFragment(
    private val registry: ActivityResultRegistry
) : Fragment() {
    val thumbnailLiveData = MutableLiveData<Bitmap?>

    val takePicture = registerForActivityResult(TakePicturePreview(), registry) {
        bitmap: Bitmap? -> thumbnailLiveData.setValue(bitmap)
    }

    // ...
}

public class MyFragment extends Fragment {
    private final ActivityResultRegistry mRegistry;
    private final MutableLiveData<Bitmap> mThumbnailLiveData = new MutableLiveData();
    private final ActivityResultLauncher<Void> mTakePicture =
        registerForActivityResult(new TakePicturePreview(), mRegistry, new ActivityResultCallback<Bitmap>() {
            @Override
            public void onActivityResult(Bitmap thumbnail) {
                mThumbnailLiveData.setValue(thumbnail);
            }
        });

    public MyFragment(@NonNull ActivityResultRegistry registry) {
        super();
        mRegistry = registry;
    }

    @VisibleForTesting
    @NonNull
    ActivityResultLauncher<Void> getTakePicture() {
        return mTakePicture;
    }

    @VisibleForTesting
    @NonNull
    LiveData<Bitmap> getThumbnailLiveData() {
        return mThumbnailLiveData;
    }

    // ...
}

When creating a test-specific ActivityResultRegistry, you must implement the onLaunch() method. Instead of calling startActivityForResult(), your test implementation can call dispatchResult() directly, providing the exact results you want to use in your test:

val testRegistry = object : ActivityResultRegistry() {
    override fun <I, O> onLaunch(
            requestCode: Int,
            contract: ActivityResultContract<I, O>,
            input: I,
            options: ActivityOptionsCompat?
    ) {
        dispatchResult(requestCode, expectedResult)
    }
}

The complete test creates the expected result, constructs a test ActivityResultRegistry, passes it to the fragment, triggers the launcher either directly or using other test APIs such as Espresso, and then verifies the results:

@Test
fun activityResultTest {
    // Create an expected result Bitmap
    val expectedResult = Bitmap.createBitmap(1, 1, Bitmap.Config.RGBA_F16)

    // Create the test ActivityResultRegistry
    val testRegistry = object : ActivityResultRegistry() {
            override fun <I, O> onLaunch(
            requestCode: Int,
            contract: ActivityResultContract<I, O>,
            input: I,
            options: ActivityOptionsCompat?
        ) {
            dispatchResult(requestCode, expectedResult)
        }
    }

    // Use the launchFragmentInContainer method that takes a
    // lambda to construct the Fragment with the testRegistry
    with(launchFragmentInContainer { MyFragment(testRegistry) }) {
            onFragment { fragment ->
                // Trigger the ActivityResultLauncher
                fragment.takePicture()
                // Verify the result is set
                assertThat(fragment.thumbnailLiveData.value)
                        .isSameInstanceAs(expectedResult)
            }
    }
}

Create a custom contract

While ActivityResultContracts contains a number of prebuilt ActivityResultContract classes for use, you can provide your own contracts that provide the precise type-safe API you need.

Each ActivityResultContract requires defined input and output classes, using Void as the input type if you don't require any input (in Kotlin, use either Void? or Unit).

Each contract must implement the createIntent() method, which takes a Context and the input and constructs the Intent that is used with startActivityForResult().

Each contract must also implement parseResult(), which produces the output from the given resultCode, such as Activity.RESULT_OK or Activity.RESULT_CANCELED, and the Intent.

Contracts can optionally implement getSynchronousResult() if it is possible to determine the result for a given input without needing to call createIntent(), start the other activity, and use parseResult() to build the result.

The following example shows how to construct an ActivityResultContract:

class PickRingtone : ActivityResultContract<Int, Uri?>() {
    override fun createIntent(context: Context, ringtoneType: Int) =
        Intent(RingtoneManager.ACTION_RINGTONE_PICKER).apply {
            putExtra(RingtoneManager.EXTRA_RINGTONE_TYPE, ringtoneType)
        }

    override fun parseResult(resultCode: Int, result: Intent?) : Uri? {
        if (resultCode != Activity.RESULT_OK) {
            return null
        }
        return result?.getParcelableExtra(RingtoneManager.EXTRA_RINGTONE_PICKED_URI)
    }
}

public class PickRingtone extends ActivityResultContract<Integer, Uri> {
    @NonNull
    @Override
    public Intent createIntent(@NonNull Context context, @NonNull Integer ringtoneType) {
        Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_GET_CONTENT);
        intent.putExtra(RingtoneManager.EXTRA_RINGTONE_TYPE, ringtoneType.intValue());
        return intent;
    }

    @Override
    public Uri parseResult(int resultCode, @Nullable Intent result) {
        if (resultCode != Activity.RESULT_OK || result == null) {
            return null;
        }
        return result.getParcelableExtra(RingtoneManager.EXTRA_RINGTONE_PICKED_URI);
    }
}

If you don't need a custom contract, you can use the StartActivityForResult contract. This is a generic contract that takes any Intent as an input and returns an ActivityResult, letting you extract the resultCode and Intent as part of your callback, as shown in the following example:

val startForResult = registerForActivityResult(StartActivityForResult()) { result: ActivityResult ->
    if (result.resultCode == Activity.RESULT_OK) {
        val intent = result.data
        // Handle the Intent
    }
}

override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle) {
    // ...

    val startButton = findViewById(R.id.start_button)

    startButton.setOnClickListener {
        // Use the Kotlin extension in activity-ktx
        // passing it the Intent you want to start
        startForResult.launch(Intent(this, ResultProducingActivity::class.java))
    }
}

ActivityResultLauncher<Intent> mStartForResult = registerForActivityResult(new StartActivityForResult(),
        new ActivityResultCallback<ActivityResult>() {
    @Override
    public void onActivityResult(ActivityResult result) {
        if (result.getResultCode() == Activity.RESULT_OK) {
            Intent intent = result.getData();
            // Handle the Intent
        }
    }
});

@Override
public void onCreate(@Nullable savedInstanceState: Bundle) {
    // ...

    Button startButton = findViewById(R.id.start_button);

    startButton.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
        @Override
        public void onClick(View view) {
            // The launcher with the Intent you want to start
            mStartForResult.launch(new Intent(this, ResultProducingActivity.class));
        }
    });
}