android - Check if application is on its first run

Question

This question already has answers here:

Answer 1

The following is an example of using SharedPreferences to achieve a 'first run' check.

public class MyActivity extends Activity {

    SharedPreferences prefs = null;

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        // Perhaps set content view here

        prefs = getSharedPreferences("com.mycompany.myAppName", MODE_PRIVATE);
    }

    @Override
    protected void onResume() {
        super.onResume();

        if (prefs.getBoolean("firstrun", true)) {
            // Do first run stuff here then set 'firstrun' as false
            // using the following line to edit/commit prefs
            prefs.edit().putBoolean("firstrun", false).commit();
        }
    }
}

When the code runs prefs.getBoolean(...) if there isn't a boolean saved in SharedPreferences with the key "firstrun" then that indicates the app has never been run (because nothing has ever saved a boolean with that key or the user has cleared the app data in order to force a 'first run' scenario). If this isn't the first run then the line prefs.edit().putBoolean("firstrun", false).commit(); will have been executed and therefore prefs.getBoolean("firstrun", true) will actually return false as it overrides the default true provided as the second parameter.