How to Disable Back Press Button in Android?

Physical keys on Android let users lock the phone, switch off the device, control volume, go back, go home and display background applications. Between all the keys, the back button is used the most in applications for navigating between activities. However, if the navigation stage reaches the start point on the continuous back press, the application shall not immediately close and ask for an input to close in any form like an AlterDialog. This is basically disabling the back button to exit the application and asking for user input.

So in this article, we will show you how you could disable the back press in Android. Follow the below steps once the IDE is ready.

Step by Step Implementation

Step 1: Create a New Project in Android Studio

To create a new project in Android Studio please refer to How to Create/Start a New Project in Android Studio. We demonstrated the application in Kotlin, so make sure you select Kotlin as the primary language while creating a New Project.

Step 2: Working with the activity_main.xml file

Navigate to the app > res > layout > activity_main.xml and add the below code to that file. Below is the code for the activity_main.xml file.

XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<androidx.constraintlayout.widget.ConstraintLayout
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    tools:context=".MainActivity">

    <TextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="Hello Geek!"
        app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="parent"
        app:layout_constraintLeft_toLeftOf="parent"
        app:layout_constraintRight_toRightOf="parent"
        app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="parent" />

</androidx.constraintlayout.widget.ConstraintLayout>

Step 3: Working with the MainActivity.kt file

Go to the MainActivity.kt file and refer to the following code. Below is the code for the MainActivity.kt file. Comments are added inside the code to understand the code in more detail.

Kotlin

package org.geeksforgeeks.backpress

import androidx.appcompat.app.AppCompatActivity
import android.os.Bundle
import android.widget.Toast

class MainActivity : AppCompatActivity() {
    override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main)
    }

    override fun onBackPressed() {

        // To execute back press
        // super.onBackPressed()

        // To do something else
        Toast.makeText(applicationContext, "Back Button Pressed", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show()
    }
}

Output:

You can see that the back press is disabled.