--- title: Understanding Activity launch modes in Android | daily.dev description: Android Activity launch modes control how activities are instantiated and managed in the back stack. There are 5 modes: standard (new instance every time),... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/understanding-activity-launch-modes-in-android-vtpa9ve2h twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Understanding Activity launch modes in Android | daily.dev og:description: Android Activity launch modes control how activities are instantiated and managed in the back stack. There are 5 modes: standard (new instance every time),... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/understanding-activity-launch-modes-in-android-vtpa9ve2h og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/VtPA9Ve2H.png og:image:alt: Understanding Activity launch modes in Android og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Understanding Activity launch modes in Android **[Medium](https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js)** · 3 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Android Activity launch modes control how activities are instantiated and managed in the back stack. There are 5 modes: standard (new instance every time), singleTop (reuses if already on top), singleTask (one instance per app, clears activities above it), singleInstance (one instance across the entire device in its own task), and singleInstancePerTask (one instance per task, but multiple tasks can each have their own instance). A key pattern when reusing activities is handling new data via onNewIntent() and calling setIntent() to avoid displaying stale data. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Android Internals: What Really Happens Under the Hood When You Tap on App Icon?](https://daily.dev/posts/android-internals-what-really-happens-under-the-hood-when-you-tap-on-app-icon--f0ohazgqw) · ProAndroidDev · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [8/28: What Really Happens When You Tap Your App Icon](https://daily.dev/posts/8-28-what-really-happens-when-you-tap-your-app-icon-nlc3doh6o) · Medium · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Android Security in the Age of Jetpack Compose: From Task Hijacking to Tapjacking](https://daily.dev/posts/android-security-in-the-age-of-jetpack-compose-from-task-hijacking-to-tapjacking-edrxt8d0s) · ProAndroidDev · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#android](https://daily.dev/tags/android), [#kotlin](https://daily.dev/tags/kotlin) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/understanding-activity-launch-modes-in-android-vtpa9ve2h) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Understanding Activity launch modes in Android","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/understanding-activity-launch-modes-in-android-vtpa9ve2h","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/understanding-activity-launch-modes-in-android-vtpa9ve2h"},"datePublished":"2026-07-27T07:33:46.758Z","dateModified":"2026-07-27T07:34:20.822Z","description":"Android Activity launch modes control how activities are instantiated and managed in the back stack. 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