Create a search interface

When you're ready to add search functionality to your app, Android helps you implement the user interface with either a search dialog that appears at the top of the activity window or a search widget that you can insert in your layout. Both the search dialog and the widget can deliver the user's search query to a specific activity in your app. This way, the user can initiate a search from any activity where the search dialog or widget is available, and the system starts the appropriate activity to perform the search and present results.

Other features available for the search dialog and widget include:

Voice search
Search suggestions based on recent queries
Search suggestions that match actual results in your app data

This document shows how to set up your app to provide a search interface that's assisted by the Android system to deliver search queries, using either the search dialog or the search widget.

Related resources:

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The basics

Before you begin, decide whether you want to implement your search interface using the search dialog or the search widget. They provide the same search features, but in slightly different ways:

The search dialog is a UI component that's controlled by the Android system. When activated by the user, the search dialog appears at the top of the activity.
The Android system controls all events in the search dialog. When the user submits a query, the system delivers the query to the activity that you specify to handle searches. The dialog can also provide search suggestions while the user types.
The search widget is an instance of SearchView that you can place anywhere in your layout. By default, the search widget behaves like a standard EditText widget and doesn't do anything, but you can configure it so that the Android system handles all input events, delivers queries to the appropriate activity, and provides search suggestions—just like the search dialog.

Note: This document focuses on how to integrate the search widget with the system for an assisted search implementation. But you can also handle all user input into the search widget yourself, using various callback methods and listeners. If you want to handle user input yourself, read the reference document for SearchView and its nested interfaces.

When the user executes a search from the search dialog or a search widget, the system creates an Intent and stores the user query in it. The system then starts the activity that you declare to handle searches—the "searchable activity"—and delivers it the intent. To set up your app for this kind of assisted search, you need the following:

A search configuration: An XML file that configures some settings for the search dialog or widget. It includes settings for features such as voice search, search suggestion, and hint text for the search box.
A searchable activity: The Activity that receives the search query, searches your data, and displays the search results.
A search interface, provided by either of the following:

The rest of this document shows you how to create the search configuration and searchable activity and how to implement a search interface with either the search dialog or search widget.

Create a searchable configuration

The first thing you need is an XML file called a search configuration. It configures certain UI aspects of the search dialog or widget and defines how features such as suggestions and voice search behave. This file is traditionally named searchable.xml and must be saved in the res/xml/ project directory.

Note: The system uses this file to instantiate a SearchableInfo object. You can't create this object yourself at runtime. You must declare the search configuration in XML.

The search configuration file must include the <searchable> element as its root node and specify one or more attributes, as shown in the following example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<searchable xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:label="@string/app_label"
    android:hint="@string/search_hint" >
</searchable>

The android:label attribute is the only required attribute. It points to a string resource, which must be the app name. This label isn't visible to the user until you enable search suggestions for Quick Search Box, at which point the label is visible in the list of Searchable items in the system settings.

Although it's not required, we recommend that you always include the android:hint attribute, which provides a hint string in the search box before users enter a query. The hint is important because it provides important clues to users about what they can search.

Tip: For consistency with other Android apps, format the string for android:hint as "Search <content-or-product>". For example, "Search songs and artists" or "Search YouTube."

The <searchable> element accepts several other attributes. However, you don't need most attributes until you add features such as search suggestions and voice search. For detailed information about the search configuration file, see the Search configuration reference document.

Create a searchable activity

A searchable activity is the Activity in your app that performs searches based on a query string and presents the search results.

When the user executes a search in the search dialog or widget, the system starts your searchable activity and delivers it the search query in an Intent with the ACTION_SEARCH action. Your searchable activity retrieves the query from the intent's QUERY extra, then searches your data and presents the results.

Because you can include the search dialog or widget in any other activity in your app, the system must know which activity is your searchable activity so that it can properly deliver the search query. So, first declare your searchable activity in the Android manifest file.

Declare a searchable activity

If you don't have one already, create an Activity that performs searches and presents results. You don't need to implement the search functionality yet—just create an activity that you can declare in the manifest. Inside the manifest's <activity> element, do the following:

Declare the activity to accept the ACTION_SEARCH intent in an <intent-filter> element.
Specify the search configuration to use in a <meta-data> element.

This is shown in the following example:

<application ... >
    <activity android:name=".SearchableActivity" >
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="android.intent.action.SEARCH" />
        </intent-filter>
        <meta-data android:name="android.app.searchable"
                   android:resource="@xml/searchable"/>
    </activity>
    ...
</application>

The <meta-data> element must include the android:name attribute with a value of "android.app.searchable" and the android:resource attribute with a reference to the searchable configuration file. In the preceding example, it refers to the res/xml/searchable.xml file.

Note: The <intent-filter> doesn't need a <category> with the DEFAULT value—which you usually see in <activity> elements—because the system delivers the ACTION_SEARCH intent explicitly to your searchable activity using its component name.

Perform a search

After you declare your searchable activity in the manifest, follow this procedure to perform a search in your searchable activity:

Receive the query.
Search your data.
Present the results.

Receive the query

When a user executes a search from the search dialog or widget, the system starts your searchable activity and sends it an ACTION_SEARCH intent. This intent carries the search query in the QUERY string extra. Check for this intent when the activity starts and extract the string. For example, here's how you can get the search query when your searchable activity starts:

Kotlin

override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
    setContentView(R.layout.search)

    // Verify the action and get the query.
    if (Intent.ACTION_SEARCH == intent.action) {
        intent.getStringExtra(SearchManager.QUERY)?.also { query ->
            doMySearch(query)
        }
    }
}

Java

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.search);

    // Get the intent, verify the action, and get the query.
    Intent intent = getIntent();
    if (Intent.ACTION_SEARCH.equals(intent.getAction())) {
      String query = intent.getStringExtra(SearchManager.QUERY);
      doMySearch(query);
    }
}

The QUERY string is always included with the ACTION_SEARCH intent. In the preceding example, the query is retrieved and passed to a local doMySearch() method where the actual search operation is done.

Search your data

The process of storing and searching your data is unique to your app. You can store and search your data in many ways, and this document doesn't show you how. Consider how you store and search your data in terms of your needs and your data format. The following are tips you might be able to apply:

If your data is stored in a SQLite database on the device, performing a full-text search—using FTS3, rather than a LIKE query—can provide a more robust search across text data and can produce results significantly faster. See sqlite.org for information about FTS3 and the SQLiteDatabase class for information about SQLite on Android.
If your data is stored online, then the perceived search performance might be inhibited by the user's data connection. You might want to display a progress indicator until your search returns. See android.net for a reference of network APIs and ProgressBar for information about how to display a progress indicator.

Present the results

Regardless of where your data lives and how you search it, we recommend that you return search results to your searchable activity with an Adapter. This way, you can present all the search results in a RecyclerView. If your data comes from a SQLite database query, you can apply your results to a RecyclerView using a CursorAdapter. If your data comes in a different format, then you can create an extension of BaseAdapter.

An Adapter binds each item from a set of data into a View object. When the Adapter is applied to a RecyclerView, each piece of data is inserted as an individual view into the list. Adapter is just an interface, so implementations such as CursorAdapter—for binding data from a Cursor—are needed. If none of the existing implementations work for your data, then you can implement your own from BaseAdapter.

Use the search dialog

The search dialog provides a floating search box at the top of the screen, with the app icon on the left. The search dialog can provide search suggestions as the user types. When the user executes a search, the system sends the search query to a searchable activity that performs the search.

By default, the search dialog is always hidden until the user activates it. Your app can activate the search dialog by calling onSearchRequested(). However, this method doesn't work until you enable the search dialog for the activity.

To enable the search dialog to perform searches, indicate to the system which searchable activity must receive search queries from the search dialog. For example, in the preceding section about creating a searchable activity, a searchable activity named SearchableActivity is created. If you want a separate activity, such as one named OtherActivity, to show the search dialog and deliver searches to SearchableActivity, declare in the manifest that SearchableActivity is the searchable activity to use for the search dialog in OtherActivity.

To declare the searchable activity for an activity's search dialog, add a <meta-data> element inside the respective activity's <activity> element. The <meta-data> element must include the android:value attribute that specifies the searchable activity's class name and the android:name attribute with a value of "android.app.default_searchable".

For example, here is the declaration for both a searchable activity, SearchableActivity, and another activity, OtherActivity, which uses SearchableActivity to perform searches executed from its search dialog:

<application ... >
    <!-- This is the searchable activity; it performs searches. -->
    <activity android:name=".SearchableActivity" >
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="android.intent.action.SEARCH" />
        </intent-filter>
        <meta-data android:name="android.app.searchable"
                   android:resource="@xml/searchable"/>
    </activity>

    <!-- This activity enables the search dialog to initiate searches
         in the SearchableActivity. -->
    <activity android:name=".OtherActivity" ... >
        <!-- Enable the search dialog to send searches to SearchableActivity. -->
        <meta-data android:name="android.app.default_searchable"
                   android:value=".SearchableActivity" />
    </activity>
    ...
</application>

Because OtherActivity now includes a <meta-data> element to declare which searchable activity to use for searches, the activity enables the search dialog. Although the user is in this activity, the onSearchRequested() method activates the search dialog. When the user executes the search, the system starts SearchableActivity and delivers it the ACTION_SEARCH intent.

Note: The searchable activity itself provides the search dialog by default, so you don't need to add this declaration to SearchableActivity.

If you want every activity in your app to provide the search dialog, insert the preceding <meta-data> element as a child of the <application> element, instead of each <activity>. This way, every activity inherits the value, provides the search dialog, and delivers searches to the same searchable activity. If you have multiple searchable activities, you can override the default searchable activity by placing a different <meta-data> declaration inside individual activities.

With the search dialog now enabled for your activities, your app is ready to perform searches.

Invoke the search dialog

Although some devices provide a dedicated search button, the behavior of the button might vary between devices, and many devices don't provide a search button at all. So when using the search dialog, you must provide a search button in your UI that activates the search dialog by calling onSearchRequested().

For example, add a search button in your options menu or UI layout that calls onSearchRequested().

You can also enable "type-to-search" functionality, which activates the search dialog when the user starts typing on the keyboard. The keystrokes are inserted into the search dialog. You can enable type-to-search in your activity by calling setDefaultKeyMode—or DEFAULT_KEYS_SEARCH_LOCAL—during your activity's onCreate() method.

The impact of the search dialog on your activity lifecycle

The search dialog is a Dialog that floats at the top of the screen. It doesn't cause any change in the activity stack, so when the search dialog appears, no lifecycle methods—such as onPause()—are called. Your activity loses input focus, because input focus is given to the search dialog.

If you want to be notified when the search dialog is activated, override the onSearchRequested() method. When the system calls this method, it is an indication that your activity loses input focus to the search dialog, so you can do any work appropriate for the event, such as pausing a game. Unless you are passing search context data—discussed in another section of this document—end the method by calling the superclass implementation:

Kotlin

override fun onSearchRequested(): Boolean {
    pauseSomeStuff()
    return super.onSearchRequested()
}

Java

@Override
public boolean onSearchRequested() {
    pauseSomeStuff();
    return super.onSearchRequested();
}

If the user cancels search by tapping the Back button, the search dialog closes and the activity regains input focus. You can register to be notified when the search dialog is closed with setOnDismissListener(), setOnCancelListener(), or both. You only need to register the OnDismissListener, because it is called every time the search dialog closes. The OnCancelListener only pertains to events in which the user explicitly exits the search dialog, so it's not called when a search is executed. When the search is executed, the search dialog automatically disappears.

If the current activity isn't the searchable activity, then the normal activity lifecycle events are triggered when the user executes a search—the current activity receives onPause(), as described in Introduction to activities. However, if the current activity is the searchable activity, then one of two things happens:

By default, the searchable activity receives the ACTION_SEARCH intent with a call to onCreate(), and a new instance of the activity is brought to the top of the activity stack. There are now two instances of your searchable activity in the activity stack, so tapping the Back button takes you back to the previous instance of the searchable activity, rather than exiting the searchable activity.

If you set android:launchMode to "singleTop", then the searchable activity receives the ACTION_SEARCH intent with a call to onNewIntent(Intent), passing the new ACTION_SEARCH intent. For example, here's how you might handle this case, in which the searchable activity's launch mode is "singleTop":

Kotlin

override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
    setContentView(R.layout.search)
    handleIntent(intent)
}

override fun onNewIntent(intent: Intent) {
    super.onNewIntent(intent)
    setIntent(intent)
    handleIntent(intent)
}

private fun handleIntent(intent: Intent) {
    if (Intent.ACTION_SEARCH == intent.action) {
        intent.getStringExtra(SearchManager.QUERY)?.also { query ->
            doMySearch(query)
        }
    }
}

Java

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.search);
    handleIntent(getIntent());
}

@Override
protected void onNewIntent(Intent intent) {
    super.onNewIntent(intent);
    setIntent(intent);
    handleIntent(intent);
}

private void handleIntent(Intent intent) {
    if (Intent.ACTION_SEARCH.equals(intent.getAction())) {
      String query = intent.getStringExtra(SearchManager.QUERY);
      doMySearch(query);
    }
}

Compared to the example code in the section about performing a search, all the code to handle the search intent is now in the handleIntent() method, so that both onCreate() and onNewIntent() can execute it.

When the system calls onNewIntent(Intent), the activity isn't restarted, so the getIntent() method returns the same intent that is received with onCreate(). This is why you must call setIntent(Intent) inside onNewIntent(Intent): so that the intent saved by the activity is updated in case you call getIntent() in the future.

The second scenario, using "singleTop" launch mode, is usually preferable, because after a search is done, the user might perform additional searches, and you don't want your app to create multiple instances of the searchable activity. We recommend that you set your searchable activity to "singleTop" launch mode in the app manifest, as shown in the following example:

<activity android:name=".SearchableActivity"
          android:launchMode="singleTop" >
    <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.SEARCH" />
    </intent-filter>
    <meta-data
          android:name="android.app.searchable"
          android:resource="@xml/searchable"/>
  </activity>

Pass search context data

In some cases, you can make necessary refinements to the search query inside the searchable activity for every search made. However, if you want to refine your search criteria based on the activity from which the user is performing a search, you can provide additional data in the intent that the system sends to your searchable activity. You can pass the additional data in the APP_DATA Bundle, which is included in the ACTION_SEARCH intent.

To pass this kind of data to your searchable activity, override the onSearchRequested() method for the activity from which the user can perform a search, create a Bundle with the additional data, and call startSearch() to activate the search dialog. For example:

Kotlin

override fun onSearchRequested(): Boolean {
    val appData = Bundle().apply {
        putBoolean(JARGON, true)
    }
    startSearch(null, false, appData, false)
    return true
}

Java

@Override
public boolean onSearchRequested() {
     Bundle appData = new Bundle();
     appData.putBoolean(SearchableActivity.JARGON, true);
     startSearch(null, false, appData, false);
     return true;
 }

Returning true indicates that you successfully handle this callback event and call startSearch() to activate the search dialog. After the user submits a query, it is delivered to your searchable activity along with the data you add. You can extract the extra data from the APP_DATA Bundle to refine the search, as shown in the following example:

Kotlin

val jargon: Boolean = intent.getBundleExtra(SearchManager.APP_DATA)?.getBoolean(JARGON) ?: false

Java

Bundle appData = getIntent().getBundleExtra(SearchManager.APP_DATA);
if (appData != null) {
    boolean jargon = appData.getBoolean(SearchableActivity.JARGON);
}

Caution: Never call the startSearch() method from outside the onSearchRequested() callback method. To activate the search dialog in your activity, always call onSearchRequested(). Otherwise, onSearchRequested() isn't called and customizations—such as the addition of appData in the preceding example—are missed.

Use the search widget

An image showing a search view in the app top bar

Figure 1. The SearchViewwidget as an action view in the app bar.

The search widget provides the same functionality as the search dialog. It starts the appropriate activity when the user executes a search, and it can provide search suggestions and perform voice search. If it's not an option for you to put the search widget in the app bar, you can instead put the search widget somewhere in your activity layout.

Configure the search widget

After you create a search configuration and a searchable activity, enable assisted search for each SearchView by calling setSearchableInfo() and passing it the SearchableInfo object that represents your searchable configuration.

You can get a reference to the SearchableInfo by calling getSearchableInfo() on SearchManager.

For example, if you're using a SearchView as an action view in the app bar, enable the widget during the onCreateOptionsMenu() callback, as shown in the following example:

Kotlin

override fun onCreateOptionsMenu(menu: Menu): Boolean {
    // Inflate the options menu from XML.
    val inflater = menuInflater
    inflater.inflate(R.menu.options_menu, menu)

    // Get the SearchView and set the searchable configuration.
    val searchManager = getSystemService(Context.SEARCH_SERVICE) as SearchManager
    (menu.findItem(R.id.menu_search).actionView as SearchView).apply {
        // Assumes current activity is the searchable activity.
        setSearchableInfo(searchManager.getSearchableInfo(componentName))
        setIconifiedByDefault(false) // Don't iconify the widget. Expand it by default.
    }

    return true
}

Java

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    // Inflate the options menu from XML.
    MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater();
    inflater.inflate(R.menu.options_menu, menu);

    // Get the SearchView and set the searchable configuration.
    SearchManager searchManager = (SearchManager) getSystemService(Context.SEARCH_SERVICE);
    SearchView searchView = (SearchView) menu.findItem(R.id.menu_search).getActionView();
    // Assumes current activity is the searchable activity.
    searchView.setSearchableInfo(searchManager.getSearchableInfo(getComponentName()));
    searchView.setIconifiedByDefault(false); // Don't iconify the widget. Expand it by default.

    return true;
}

The search widget is now configured, and the system delivers search queries to your searchable activity. You can also enable search suggestions for the search widget.

Note: If you want to handle all user input yourself, you can do so with some callback methods and event listeners. For more information, see the reference documentation for SearchView and its nested interfaces.

For more information about action views in the app bar, see Use action views and action providers.

Other search widget features

The SearchView widget provides a few additional features you might want:

A submit button: By default, there's no button to submit a search query, so the user has to press the Return key on the keyboard to initiate a search. You can add a "submit" button by calling setSubmitButtonEnabled(true).
Query refinement for search suggestions: When you enable search suggestions, you usually expect users to select a suggestion, but they might also want to refine the suggested search query. You can add a button alongside each suggestion that inserts the suggestion in the search box for refinement by the user by calling setQueryRefinementEnabled(true).
The ability to toggle search box visibility: By default, the search widget is "iconified," meaning that it is represented only by a search icon—a magnifying glass. It expands to show the search box when the user taps the icon. As shown in the preceding example, you can show the search box by default by calling setIconifiedByDefault(false). You can also toggle the search widget appearance by calling setIconified().

There are several other APIs in the SearchView class that let you customize the search widget. However, most of them are used only when you handle all user input yourself, instead of using the Android system to deliver search queries and display search suggestions.

Use both the widget and the dialog

If you insert the search widget in the app bar as an action view and enable it to appear in the app bar if there is room—by setting android:showAsAction="ifRoom"—then the search widget might not appear as an action view. Instead, a menu item might appear in the overflow menu. For example, when your app runs on a smaller screen, there might not be enough room in the app bar to display the search widget along with other action items or navigation elements, so the menu item instead appears in the overflow menu. When placed in the overflow menu, the item works like an ordinary menu item and doesn't display the action view—that is, the search widget.

To handle this situation, the menu item to which you attach the search widget must activate the search dialog when the user selects it from the overflow menu. To make this happen, implement onOptionsItemSelected() to handle the "Search" menu item and open the search dialog by calling onSearchRequested().

For more information about how items in the app bar work and how to handle this situation, see Add the app bar.

Add voice search

You can add voice search functionality to your search dialog or widget by adding the android:voiceSearchMode attribute to your searchable configuration. This adds a voice search button that launches a voice prompt. When the user finishes speaking, the transcribed search query is sent to your searchable activity.

This is shown in the following example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<searchable xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:label="@string/search_label"
    android:hint="@string/search_hint"
    android:voiceSearchMode="showVoiceSearchButton|launchRecognizer" >
</searchable>

The value showVoiceSearchButton is required to enable voice search. The second value, launchRecognizer, specifies that the voice search button must launch a recognizer that returns the transcribed text to the searchable activity.

You can provide additional attributes to specify the voice search behavior, such as the expected language and the maximum number of results to return. See the Search configuration reference for more information about the available attributes.

Add search suggestions

Both the search dialog and the search widget can provide search suggestions as the user types, with assistance from the Android system. The system manages the list of suggestions and handles the event when the user selects a suggestion.

You can provide two kinds of search suggestions:

Recent query search suggestions: These suggestions are words that the user previously used as search queries in your app. See Add custom search suggestions for more information.
Custom search suggestions: These are search suggestions that you provide from your own data source to help users immediately select the correct spelling or item they are searching for. See Add custom search suggestions for more information.