How to stop all activities and exit from android application

[Satchidananda Mohanty]

Hi there !!

I wanted to stop all the activities and exit from my current android application. Can you suggest any better way to handle this.


Thanks in advance.

[Mohan Prasath]

While invoking your child activity you have to set the following flag to your intent. FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP - this tag gives importance to the
intent to be started and removes all other activities in the stack.

Intent intent = new Intent(getApplicationContext(), "//Your activity to be invoked");
intent.addFlags(FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
startActivity(intent);

Note : Also set FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP in the list of flags.

[Anurag Verma]

is System.exit(0) not a good option for this?

[Mohan Prasath]

There are many reasons why GC usage is not promoted.
1. The use of System.gc() is often considered to be inefficient code. Technically System.gc() works when there is anything to be garbaged. (This is my personal opinion and a general knowledge from my work experience)
2. You can't actually say what it does with the memory when you call it. And technically Java Heap space does not depend upon Java Memory Allocations.
3. As mentioned Google IO 2011, GC usage has to be avoided. Memory Management in Android

[Satchidananda Mohanty]

Thank you Mr. Mohan,
Let me try this.

[Tim Moores]

You can call finish() from with the main Activity to exit.

I doubt that calling System.gc() is even allowed, but it would indeed be a bad choice, as the app doesn't get a chance to clean up properly.

[Satchidananda Mohanty]

Finish() only finishes that current Activity and moves back to the previous Activity.