How to finish multiple activities at once in android?

Question

I have my Activity flows like this ACTIVITY A -> ACTIVITY B -> ACTIVITY C -> ACTIVITY D. When the user is on Activity D and click a button called exit, the application should go back to Activity B and finish the Activities C and D. How can I do that?

NOTE : ACTIVITY B and ACTIVITY D are the same class but different instance

Answer 1

In AndroidManifest.xml, set android:noHistory as true for Activity B, C and D. set it as false for Activity A (actually, the default is false).

Demo:

<activity android:name=".xx.xx.ActivityA" 
    android:noHistory="false"
    android:screenOrientation="nosensor">
</activity>

<activity android:name=".xx.xx.ActivityB" 
    android:noHistory="true"
    android:screenOrientation="nosensor">
</activity>        

<activity android:name=".xx.xx.ActivityC" 
    android:noHistory="true"
    android:screenOrientation="nosensor">
</activity>

<activity android:name=".xx.xx.ActivityD" 
    android:noHistory="true"
    android:screenOrientation="nosensor">
</activity>

For the exit Button:

exitBtn.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
    @Override
    public void onClick(View v) {
        Intent intent = new Intent(getApplicationContext(),ActivityB.class);
        startActivity(intent);
        finish();
    }
});

Answer 2

Quite complicated solution, but allows to fully manipulate backstack. Basically create your own "backstack" in you Application:

public class MyApplication extends Application {

    private Set<Activity> runningActivities = new HashSet<>();

    onCreate() {
        // ...
        registerActivityLifecycleCallbacks(new ActivityLifecycleCallbacks() {
            @Override public void onActivityCreated(Activity activity, Bundle savedInstanceState) {
                runningActivities.add(activity);
            }
            @Override public void onActivityDestroyed(Activity activity) {
                runningActivities.remove(activity);
            }
        });
    }

    public void killActivities(Set<Class<?>> activitiesToRemove) {
        for (Activity stackActivity : runningActivities) {
            if (activitiesToRemove.contains(stackActivity.getClass())) {
                stackActivity.finish();
            }
        }
    }
}

Now you can call something like this in you ActivityD:

((MyApplication)getApplication()).killActivities(ActivityD.class, ActivityC.class)

You can use Map instead of Set if class isn't only specifier necessary to determine which activity should be removed...

Please corret me if there is something wrong with my solution, but it seems like there should be no leaks and no boilerplate in your activities

Edit - Kotlin version:

class MyApplication : Application() {

    private val runningActivities = mutableSetOf<Activity>()

    
    override fun onCreate() {
        // ...
        registerActivityLifecycleCallbacks(object : ActivityLifecycleCallbacks {
            override fun onActivityCreated(activity: Activity, savedInstanceState: Bundle) {
                runningActivities.add(activity)
            }
            override fun onActivityDestroyed(activity: Activity) {
                runningActivities.remove(activity)
            }
        })
    }

    fun killActivities(activitiesToRemove: Set<Class<Activity>>) {
        runningActivities.forEach { activity ->
            if (activitiesToRemove.contains(activity.javaClass)) {
                activity.finish()
            }
        }
    }
}