Showing Pop-Up Messages

There are many situations where you might want your app to show a quick message to the user, without necessarily waiting for the user to respond. For example, when a user performs an action like sending an email or deleting a file, your app should show a quick confirmation to the user. Often the user doesn't need to respond to the message. The message needs to be prominent enough that the user can see it, but not so prominent that it prevents the user from working with your app.

Android provides the Snackbar widget for this common use case. A Snackbar provides a quick pop-up message to the user. The current activity remains visible and interactive while the Snackbar is displayed. After a short time, the Snackbar automatically dismisses itself.

This class teaches you how to use Snackbar to show pop-up messages.

Figure 1. A Snackbar shows a message at the bottom of the activity, but the rest of the activity is still usable.

Note: The Snackbar class supersedes Toast. While Toast is currently still supported, Snackbar is now the preferred way to display brief, transient messages to the user.

Lessons

Using a Snackbar to Show a Message

Learn how to use a Snackbar to display a brief message to the user.

Adding an Action to a Message

Learn how to add an action to a message, allowing the user to respond to the message.