Running in a Background Service

Unless you specify otherwise, most of the operations you do in an app run in the foreground on a special thread called the UI thread. Long-running foreground operations can cause problems and interfere with the responsiveness of your user interface, which annoys your users and can even cause system errors. To avoid this, the Android framework offers several classes that help you off-load operations onto a separate thread that runs in the background. The most useful of these is IntentService.

This class describes how to implement an IntentService, send it work requests, and report its results to other components.

Note: If your app targets Android 5.0 (API level 21), you should use JobScheduler to execute background services. For more information about this class, see the JobScheduler reference documentation.

Lessons

Creating a Background Service

Learn how to create an IntentService.

Sending Work Requests to the Background Service

Learn how to send work requests to an IntentService.

Reporting Work Status

Learn how to use an Intent and a LocalBroadcastManager to communicate the status of a work request from an IntentService to the Activity that sent the request.