Shared Preferences in Android

 Shared Preferences allows activities and applications to keep preferences, in the form of key-
value pairs similar to a Map that will persist even when the user closes the application.
 Android stores Shared Preferences settings as XML file in shared_prefs folder under
DATA/data/{application package} directory.
 The DATA folder can be obtained by calling Environment.getDataDirectory(). SharedPreferences
is application specific, i.e. the data is lost on performing one of the following options:
o on uninstalling the application
o on clearing the application data (through Settings)
 To get access to the preferences, we have three APIs to choose from:
o getPreferences() : used from within your Activity, to access activity-specific
preferences
o getSharedPreferences() : used from within your Activity (or other application
Context), to access application-level preferences
o getDefaultSharedPreferences() : used on the PreferenceManager, to get the
shared preferences that work in concert with Android’s overall preference framework.

getSharedPreferences() method : The method is defined as follows:

getSharedPreferences (String PREFS_NAME, int mode)

PREFS_NAME is the name of the file. mode is the operating mode. Following are the operating
modes applicable:

 MODE_PRIVATE: the default mode, where the created file can only be accessed by the
calling application
 MODE_WORLD_READABLE: Creating world-readable files is very dangerous, and likely to
cause security holes in applications
 MODE_WORLD_WRITEABLE: Creating world-writable files is very dangerous, and likely to
cause security holes in applications
 MODE_MULTI_PROCESS: This method will check for modification of preferences even if the
Shared Preference instance has already been loaded
 MODE_APPEND: This will append the new preferences with the already existing preferences
 MODE_ENABLE_WRITE_AHEAD_LOGGING: Database open flag. When it is set, it would
enable write ahead logging by default.

Example →

activity_main.xml file
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="https://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"

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 android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin" >

<Button
android:id="@+id/btnSave"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_centerVertical="true"
android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
android:layout_alignParentStart="true"
android:onClick="Save"
android:text="Save" />

<Button
android:id="@+id/btnRetr"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
android:layout_centerVertical="true"
android:onClick="Get"
android:text="Retrieve" />

<Button
android:id="@+id/btnClear"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignRight="@+id/etEmail"
android:layout_centerVertical="true"
android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
android:layout_alignParentEnd="true"
android:onClick="clear"
android:text="Clear" />

<EditText
android:id="@+id/etEmail"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:ems="10"
android:hint="Email"
android:inputType="textEmailAddress"
android:layout_below="@+id/etName"
android:layout_marginTop="20dp"
android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
android:layout_alignParentEnd="true" />

<EditText
android:id="@+id/etName"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:ems="10"
android:hint="Name"
android:inputType="text"
android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
android:layout_alignLeft="@+id/etEmail"
android:layout_alignStart="@+id/etEmail" />

</RelativeLayout>

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 MainActivity.java file

package com.journaldev.sharedpreferences;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.content.Context;
import android.content.SharedPreferences;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.TextView;

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

SharedPreferences sharedpreferences;
TextView name;
TextView email;
public static final String mypreference = "mypref";
public static final String Name = "nameKey";
public static final String Email = "emailKey";

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
name = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.etName);
email = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.etEmail);
sharedpreferences = getSharedPreferences(mypreference,
Context.MODE_PRIVATE);
if (sharedpreferences.contains(Name)) {
name.setText(sharedpreferences.getString(Name, ""));
}
if (sharedpreferences.contains(Email)) {
email.setText(sharedpreferences.getString(Email, ""));

public void Save(View view) {

String n = name.getText().toString();
String e = email.getText().toString();
SharedPreferences.Editor editor = sharedpreferences.edit();
editor.putString(Name, n);
editor.putString(Email, e);
editor.commit();
}

public void clear(View view) {

name = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.etName);
email = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.etEmail);
name.setText("");
email.setText("");

public void Get(View view) {

name = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.etName);
email = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.etEmail);
sharedpreferences = getSharedPreferences(mypreference,
Context.MODE_PRIVATE);
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 if (sharedpreferences.contains(Name)) {
name.setText(sharedpreferences.getString(Name, ""));
}
if (sharedpreferences.contains(Email)) {
email.setText(sharedpreferences.getString(Email, ""));

}
}

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
// Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu_main, menu);
return true;
}

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