By lostInTransit

2009-02-12 15:59:00 8 Comments

I am using a ListView to display some images and captions associated with those images. I am getting the images from the Internet. Is there a way to lazy load the images so while the text displays, the UI is not locked up and images are displayed as they are downloaded?

The total number of images is not fixed.


@Zankrut Parmar 2018-02-26 05:02:17

If you want to display Shimmer layout like Facebook there is a official facebook library for that. FaceBook Shimmer Android

It takes care of everything, You just need to put your desired design code in nested manner in shimmer frame. Here is a sample code.


 <here will be your content to display />


And here is the java code for it.

ShimmerFrameLayout shimmerContainer = (ShimmerFrameLayout) findViewById(;

Add this dependency in your gradle file.

implementation 'com.facebook.shimmer:shimmer:[email protected]'

Here is how it looks like.Shimmer Android screenshot

@Fedor 2010-06-18 08:04:09

I made a simple demo of a lazy list (located at GitHub) with images.

Basic Usage

ImageLoader imageLoader=new ImageLoader(context); ...
imageLoader.DisplayImage(url, imageView); 

Don't forget to add the following permissions to your AndroidManifest.xml:

 <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"/>
 <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE"/> Please

create only one instance of ImageLoader and reuse it all around your application. This way image caching will be much more efficient.

It may be helpful to somebody. It downloads images in the background thread. Images are being cached on an SD card and in memory. The cache implementation is very simple and is just enough for the demo. I decode images with inSampleSize to reduce memory consumption. I also try to handle recycled views correctly.

Alt text

@shaman.sir 2010-10-12 18:18:02

Thank you, I'm using a slightly modified version of your code almost everywhere in my project:‌​sov/…

@Richard 2010-10-29 20:39:35

Has anyone looked at the code by Gilles Debunne as an alternative. The two big differences I see are 1) in memory caching vs SD card and 2) the use of AsyncTasks instead of a thread pool.…

@Joseph Earl 2011-05-07 17:03:23

@Richard AsyncTask maintains it's own pool so no real difference there.

@kharles 2011-08-08 15:11:35

@fedor, how would one manage calls to stopThread() if there are multiple activities sharing the same instance of the single instance? or simply let all the images load that are queued...

@Fedor 2011-08-09 02:52:01

@kharles if you use ImageLoader in multiple activities you can only call stopThread in Application onDestroy().

@Mikooos 2011-10-13 08:02:27

There is a bug, sometimes it's fired:10-13 09:58:46.738: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(24250): Uncaught handler: thread main exiting due to uncaught exception 10-13 09:58:46.768: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(24250): java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: Array index out of range: 0 10-13 09:58:46.768: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(24250): at java.util.Vector.elementAt( 10-13 09:58:46.768: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(24250): at java.util.Vector.get( 10-13 09:58:46.768: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(24250): at$PhotosQueue.Clean(ImageLoader.j‌​ava:91)

@Adam 2011-11-03 22:29:35

I would like to add for the newbies like me that if you want to add this code to your own project, you must add external cache permissions in the manifest. Thank You

@gadelat 2012-02-29 22:56:41

It's huge, it's blurred and screen is pulsating while it's connected to dock. compare: vs (that one is linkuniversalimageloader It's just too big for tablets, biggest advantage of tablet - big screen=more information is pointless with lazylist.

@Ixx 2013-01-02 22:25:45

2 questions/problems: 1. This doesn't seem to handle the native heap problem in pre-honeycomb. So it's possible to get out of memory errors. Do you have a solution for that? 2. Just curiosity, Why are you not using the LruCache? It's available in all apis (with compatibility package). Thanks.

@Fedor 2013-03-28 03:58:46

@BruceHill There's no photosQueue in the latest source code. You seem to be using some very old version.

@Fernando Camargo 2013-04-16 19:05:13

I forked this code to make it more customizable. You can see my fork here:‌​cts/…

@MrBr 2013-05-28 09:23:20

I would like to receive a notification when the image download process was finished..

@Yeung 2013-08-26 03:57:38

Hey. Why use HttpURLConnection.disconnect()? It would not benefit from the HTTP Persistent Connections. see this

@vrunoa 2013-10-29 19:17:34

@MrBr like a callback ?

@MrBr 2013-10-31 09:17:06

@vrunoa Yes. Something like that so I can react to the completed download transfer and execute dependent tasks.

@vrunoa 2013-10-31 14:45:08

It's a good and useful feature, I'll think how to add a callback at the class.

@Ankit Srivastava 2013-11-19 22:21:02

Anyone knows how to use it for local images??

@AndroidOptimist 2013-12-23 09:18:18

@Fedor i would like to load only image from my local xml file into imageview instead of setting it from drawable folder.Can you please tell me how to achieve that

@Ersin Gülbahar 2014-05-09 12:40:19

I implement this to my project, and it is working well and thanks for this examle, But one thing that it is problem sometimes, It is ; when I loa more images and it gives out of memory, and what can I do for that and I can t use bitmap.recycle() it gives error maybe I can t use it correctly can you help me

@Alston 2014-06-04 08:54:05

If I want to display the pictures which found in the SD card in lazy loading, which part should I alter? I trace the source code for tens of times but in vain. It always show me the stub_id picture...

@Akshay 2014-12-06 06:15:01

@Fedor I have some issue with your suggested link on GitHub please reply to it..

@Trilarion 2015-12-26 22:17:09

Some explanations of the key features of the linked code would be nice.

@Ersin Gülbahar 2016-04-14 04:52:27

Thanks for answer, but this is NOT working on HTC m8 and m9, it Shows first default image, it does not show the real image which load from internet, how can I do that

@James A Wilson 2009-02-18 03:56:58

Here's what I created to hold the images that my app is currently displaying. Please note that the "Log" object in use here is my custom wrapper around the final Log class inside Android.


contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
distributed with this work for additional information
regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
software distributed under the License is distributed on an
KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
specific language governing permissions and limitations
under the License.

public class DrawableManager {
    private final Map<String, Drawable> drawableMap;

    public DrawableManager() {
        drawableMap = new HashMap<String, Drawable>();

    public Drawable fetchDrawable(String urlString) {
        if (drawableMap.containsKey(urlString)) {
            return drawableMap.get(urlString);

        Log.d(this.getClass().getSimpleName(), "image url:" + urlString);
        try {
            InputStream is = fetch(urlString);
            Drawable drawable = Drawable.createFromStream(is, "src");

            if (drawable != null) {
                drawableMap.put(urlString, drawable);
                Log.d(this.getClass().getSimpleName(), "got a thumbnail drawable: " + drawable.getBounds() + ", "
                        + drawable.getIntrinsicHeight() + "," + drawable.getIntrinsicWidth() + ", "
                        + drawable.getMinimumHeight() + "," + drawable.getMinimumWidth());
            } else {
              Log.w(this.getClass().getSimpleName(), "could not get thumbnail");

            return drawable;
        } catch (MalformedURLException e) {
            Log.e(this.getClass().getSimpleName(), "fetchDrawable failed", e);
            return null;
        } catch (IOException e) {
            return null;

    public void fetchDrawableOnThread(final String urlString, final ImageView imageView) {
        if (drawableMap.containsKey(urlString)) {

        final Handler handler = new Handler() {
            public void handleMessage(Message message) {
                imageView.setImageDrawable((Drawable) message.obj);

        Thread thread = new Thread() {
            public void run() {
                //TODO : set imageView to a "pending" image
                Drawable drawable = fetchDrawable(urlString);
                Message message = handler.obtainMessage(1, drawable);

    private InputStream fetch(String urlString) throws MalformedURLException, IOException {
        DefaultHttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient();
        HttpGet request = new HttpGet(urlString);
        HttpResponse response = httpClient.execute(request);
        return response.getEntity().getContent();

@AZ_ 2011-01-18 08:08:32

I think you should use SoftReferences so that your program will never cause OutOfMemoryException. As GC can clear softreferences when heap size is increasing... you can manage your own generation like after some seconds you can put your images to that list and before loading you should check that if image exists then don't download it again rather collect it from that list and also putting it back to your softref list and after sometime you can purge your hardlist :)

@AZ_ 2011-01-18 08:09:41

Google Shelves project is an excellent example look how they did

@Karussell 2011-03-29 22:06:40

Don't you miss a return when drawableMap contains the image ... without starting the fetching-thread?

@satur9nine 2011-11-15 05:35:45

This code has several problems. Firstly you should cache Drawables, that will cause a memory leak:… . Secondly the cache itself is never cleared so it will grow forever, that's another memory leak.

@Noman 2011-11-30 08:31:02

@James A Wilson... where do i connect it with listview to show images as thumbnails?? m a newbie android dev... if someone could tell me plz

@Atma 2012-03-26 22:26:32

this causes images to get the wrong image sources in a listview. For example I have icon 1 , 2, and 3. My list shows icon 1 and two 3 icons when using this drawable manager class. Does anyone know how this is fixed from this exact code above?

@AlexAndro 2012-06-17 10:59:11

I have used this class to download my list of images from URL and then I have used the code below to clear the cache and everything seems to work great! clear cache - here

@njzk2 2012-12-11 08:45:00

only observation : you are starting an unknown number of threads. I would recommend using an Executor with a fixed number of threads, or AsyncTask (which are using a single Executor too)

@slf 2012-12-11 14:51:22

Why not just pass "this" to your logger wrapper? Then you don't have to call getClass().getSimpleName() all over the place

@Muhammad Babar 2013-05-28 07:26:38

haven't any one heard about LRU Cache…

@Asthme 2013-08-12 14:29:34

can i use this code in Universal Image loader @JackMahoney

@Cheok Yan Cheng 2013-12-23 03:05:34

I think the code example didn't handle recycled views correctly. Did it?

@Mojtabye 2015-01-29 17:20:03

No memory Management ?!

@andrea.rinaldi 2015-09-08 07:08:53

This code doesn't handle memory leaks. And it's not performed for listviews as well.

@chiragkyada 2014-05-22 06:00:49


Use Gradle:

implementation 'com.squareup.picasso:picasso:2.71828'

Just one line of code!


2. Glide An image loading and caching library for Android focused on smooth scrolling

Use Gradle:

repositories {

dependencies {
   implementation 'com.github.bumptech.glide:glide:4.7.1'
   annotationProcessor 'com.github.bumptech.glide:compiler:4.7.1'

// For a simple view:


3. fresco is a powerful system for displaying images in Android applications.Fresco takes care of image loading and display, so you don't have to.

Getting Started with Fresco

@lalit vasan 2017-05-10 06:54:29

This tutorial may help you more for PICASOO :-… and GLIDE :-…

@Saket Kumar 2017-03-16 10:11:09

Use the glide library. It worked for me and will work for your code too.It works for both images as well as gifs too.

ImageView imageView = (ImageView) findViewById(; 
    GlideDrawableImageViewTarget imagePreview = new GlideDrawableImageViewTarget(imageView);
            .listener(new RequestListener<String, GlideDrawable>() {
                public boolean onException(Exception e, String model, Target<GlideDrawable> target, boolean isFirstResource) {                       
                    return false;

                public boolean onResourceReady(GlideDrawable resource, String model, Target<GlideDrawable> target, boolean isFromMemoryCache, boolean isFirstResource) {
                    return false;

@Sanjeet A 2015-12-03 06:46:15

I found the Glide as better option than Picasso. I was using picasso to load around 32 images of size around 200-500KB each and I was always getting OOM. But the Glide solved my all OOM issues.

@anhtuannd 2018-01-08 09:26:14

Sure, Picasso stores full image size for cache, while Glide stores optimized images only.

@BalaramNayak 2016-01-19 09:59:01

You can use some third party library such as Piccaso or Volley for effective lazy loading. You can also create your own by implementing the below

  1. Implement code for downloading the image from the url

  2. Implement caching mechanism for storing and retrieving image(Use LruCache of android for caching)

@Yessy 2016-06-14 15:49:08

Except load the data cache asynchronously, you may require the UI cache

Except the the loading visible item data, you may require to load the approximity-visible item data

Example: Suppose the listview visible item is [6,7,8,9,10], you may require to load [6,7,8,9,10] AND pre-load the item [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] & [11, 12, 13, 14, 15], because user probably scroll to the pre-page or post-page

@buczek 2016-06-14 16:09:44

In addition to your description, please include some code to further improve your answer.

@Jotiram Chavan 2015-12-03 09:01:02

use below class to download and load images in listview.It caches every images once download. Also loads images ad lazy loading.

package com.fudiyoxpress.images;

import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.WeakHashMap;
import java.util.concurrent.ExecutorService;
import java.util.concurrent.Executors;

import android.content.Context;
import android.os.Handler;
import android.widget.ImageView;

import com.fudiyoxpress.R;
import com.fudiyoxpress.config.Config;
import com.fudiyoxpress.twitter.ScaleBitmap;

public class ImageLoader {

    // Initialize MemoryCache
    MemoryCache memoryCache = new MemoryCache();

    FileCache fileCache;

    Context C;

    // Create Map (collection) to store image and image url in key value pair
    private Map<ImageView, String> imageViews = Collections
            .synchronizedMap(new WeakHashMap<ImageView, String>());
    ExecutorService executorService;

    // handler to display images in UI thread
    Handler handler = new Handler();

    public ImageLoader(Context context) {

        C = context;
        fileCache = new FileCache(context);

        // Creates a thread pool that reuses a fixed number of
        // threads operating off a shared unbounded queue.
        executorService = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(5);


    // default image show in list (Before online image download)
    final int stub_id = R.drawable.restlogoplaceholder;

    public void DisplayImage(String url, ImageView imageView, Context context,
            boolean header_flag) {

        Bitmap largeIcon = BitmapFactory.decodeResource(context.getResources(),
        header_flag = false;
        // Store image and url in Map
        imageViews.put(imageView, url);

        // Check image is stored in MemoryCache Map or not (see
        Bitmap bitmap = memoryCache.get(url);

        if (bitmap != null) {
            // if image is stored in MemoryCache Map then
            // Show image in listview row
            Bitmap b = ScaleBitmap
                    .getScaledBitmap(context, bitmap, header_flag);

        } else {
            // queue Photo to download from url
            queuePhoto(url, imageView, header_flag);

            // Before downloading image show default image
                    largeIcon, header_flag));


    private void queuePhoto(String url, ImageView imageView, boolean header_flag) {
        // Store image and url in PhotoToLoad object
        PhotoToLoad p = new PhotoToLoad(url, imageView, header_flag);

        // pass PhotoToLoad object to PhotosLoader runnable class
        // and submit PhotosLoader runnable to executers to run runnable
        // Submits a PhotosLoader runnable task for execution

        executorService.submit(new PhotosLoader(p));

    // Task for the queue
    private class PhotoToLoad {
        public String url;
        public ImageView imageView;
        public boolean b;

        public PhotoToLoad(String u, ImageView i, boolean header_flag) {
            url = u;
            imageView = i;
            b = header_flag;

    class PhotosLoader implements Runnable {
        PhotoToLoad photoToLoad;

        PhotosLoader(PhotoToLoad photoToLoad) {
            this.photoToLoad = photoToLoad;

        public void run() {
            try {
                // Check if image already downloaded
                if (imageViewReused(photoToLoad))
                // download image from web url
                Bitmap bmp = getBitmap(photoToLoad.url);

                // set image data in Memory Cache
                memoryCache.put(photoToLoad.url, bmp);

                if (imageViewReused(photoToLoad))

                // Get bitmap to display
                BitmapDisplayer bd = new BitmapDisplayer(bmp, photoToLoad);

                // Causes the Runnable bd (BitmapDisplayer) to be added to the
                // message queue.
                // The runnable will be run on the thread to which this handler
                // is attached.
                // BitmapDisplayer run method will call

            } catch (Throwable th) {
                // th.printStackTrace();

    private Bitmap getBitmap(String url) {
        File f = fileCache.getFile(url);

        // from SD cache
        // CHECK : if trying to decode file which not exist in cache return null
        Bitmap b = decodeFile(f);
        if (b != null)
            return b;

        // Download image file from web
        try {

            // // download the image
            Bitmap bitmap = null;

            URL imageURL = null;
            try {

                imageURL = new URL(Config.WEB_URL + "/ServeBlob?id=" + url);

                HttpURLConnection connection = (HttpURLConnection) imageURL
                // if(!(new File(imageURL.toString())).exists())
                // {
                // imageURL=new URL("");
                // }
                InputStream inputStream = connection.getInputStream();

                // Constructs a new FileOutputStream that writes to
                // file
                // if file not exist then it will create file
                OutputStream os = new FileOutputStream(f);

                // See Utils class CopyStream method
                // It will each pixel from input stream and
                // write pixels to output stream (file)
                Utils.CopyStream(inputStream, os);


                BitmapFactory.Options options = new BitmapFactory.Options();
                options.inSampleSize = 8;

                bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(inputStream, null, options);

            } catch (IOException e) {

                // e.printStackTrace();

            // Now file created and going to resize file with defined height
            // Decodes image and scales it to reduce memory consumption
            bitmap = decodeFile(f);

            return bitmap;

        } catch (Throwable ex) {
            if (ex instanceof OutOfMemoryError)
            return null;

    // Decodes image and scales it to reduce memory consumption
    private Bitmap decodeFile(File f) {

        try {

            // Decode image size
            BitmapFactory.Options o = new BitmapFactory.Options();
            o.inJustDecodeBounds = true;
            FileInputStream stream1 = new FileInputStream(f);
            BitmapFactory.decodeStream(stream1, null, o);


            // Set width/height of recreated image
            final int REQUIRED_SIZE = 85;

            int width_tmp = o.outWidth, height_tmp = o.outHeight;
            int scale = 1;
            while (true) {
                if (width_tmp / 2 < REQUIRED_SIZE
                        || height_tmp / 2 < REQUIRED_SIZE)
                width_tmp /= 2;
                height_tmp /= 2;
                scale *= 2;

            // decode with current scale values
            BitmapFactory.Options o2 = new BitmapFactory.Options();
            o2.inSampleSize = scale;
            FileInputStream stream2 = new FileInputStream(f);
            Bitmap bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(stream2, null, o2);
            return bitmap;

        } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
        } catch (IOException e) {
        return null;

    boolean imageViewReused(PhotoToLoad photoToLoad) {

        String tag = imageViews.get(photoToLoad.imageView);
        // Check url is already exist in imageViews MAP
        if (tag == null || !tag.equals(photoToLoad.url))
            return true;
        return false;

    // Used to display bitmap in the UI thread
    class BitmapDisplayer implements Runnable {
        Bitmap bitmap;
        PhotoToLoad photoToLoad;

        public BitmapDisplayer(Bitmap b, PhotoToLoad p) {
            bitmap = b;
            photoToLoad = p;

        public void run() {
            if (imageViewReused(photoToLoad))

            // Show bitmap on UI
            if (bitmap != null) {
                        .getScaledBitmap(C, bitmap, photoToLoad.b));
            } else {

            // photoToLoad.imageView.setImageResource(stub_id);


    public void clearCache() {
        // Clear cache directory downloaded images and stored data in maps


package com.fudiyoxpress.images;

import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.Iterator;
import java.util.LinkedHashMap;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.Map.Entry;
import android.util.Log;

public class MemoryCache {

    private static final String TAG = "MemoryCache";

    //Last argument true for LRU ordering
    private Map<String, Bitmap> cache = Collections.synchronizedMap(
            new LinkedHashMap<String, Bitmap>(10,1.5f,true));

   //current allocated size
    private long size=0; 

    //max memory cache folder used to download images in bytes
    private long limit = 1000000; 

    public MemoryCache(){

        //use 25% of available heap size

    public void setLimit(long new_limit){

        Log.i(TAG, "MemoryCache will use up to "+limit/1024./1024.+"MB");

    public Bitmap get(String id){
                return null;
            //NullPointerException sometimes happen here 
            return cache.get(id);
        }catch(NullPointerException ex){
            return null;

    public void put(String id, Bitmap bitmap){
            cache.put(id, bitmap);
        }catch(Throwable th){

    private void checkSize() {
        Log.i(TAG, "cache size="+size+" length="+cache.size());
            Iterator<Entry<String, Bitmap>> iter=cache.entrySet().iterator();//least recently accessed item will be the first one iterated  
                Entry<String, Bitmap>;
            Log.i(TAG, "Clean cache. New size "+cache.size());

    public void clear() {
            //NullPointerException sometimes happen here 
        }catch(NullPointerException ex){

    long getSizeInBytes(Bitmap bitmap) {
            return 0;
        return bitmap.getRowBytes() * bitmap.getHeight();

package com.fudiyoxpress.images;


public class Utils {
    public static void CopyStream(InputStream is, OutputStream os)
        final int buffer_size=1024;

            byte[] bytes=new byte[buffer_size];
              //Read byte from input stream

              int, 0, buffer_size);

              //Write byte from output stream
              os.write(bytes, 0, count);
        catch(Exception ex){}

@Bijay Koirala 2014-08-03 12:19:55

Just a quick tip for someone who is in indecision regarding what library to use for lazy-loading images:

There are four basic ways.

  1. DIY => Not the best solution but for a few images and if you want to go without the hassle of using others libraries

  2. Volley's Lazy Loading library => From guys at android. It is nice and everything but is poorly documented and hence is a problem to use.

  3. Picasso: A simple solution that just works, you can even specify the exact image size you want to bring in. It is very simple to use but might not be very "performant" for apps that has to deal with humongous amounts of images.

  4. UIL: The best way to lazy load images. You can cache images(you need permission of course), initialize the loader once, then have your work done. The most mature asynchronous image loading library I have ever seen so far.

@Akbar 2015-07-09 16:16:06

All above code have their own worth but with my personal experience just give a try with Picasso.

Picasso is a library specifically for this purpose, in-fact it will manage cache and all other network operations automatically.You will have to add library in your project and just write a single line of code to load image from remote URL.

Please visit here :

@Ashwin S Ashok 2014-04-04 12:35:07


Use Jake Wharton's Picasso Library. (A Perfect ImageLoading Library form the developer of ActionBarSherlock)

A powerful image downloading and caching library for Android.

Images add much-needed context and visual flair to Android applications. Picasso allows for hassle-free image loading in your application—often in one line of code!



Handling ImageView recycling and download cancellation in an adapter. Complex image transformations with minimal memory use. Automatic memory and disk caching.

Picasso Jake Wharton's Library


Glide is a fast and efficient open source media management framework for Android that wraps media decoding, memory and disk caching, and resource pooling into a simple and easy to use interface.

Glide supports fetching, decoding, and displaying video stills, images, and animated GIFs. Glide includes a flexible api that allows developers to plug in to almost any network stack. By default Glide uses a custom HttpUrlConnection based stack, but also includes utility libraries plug in to Google's Volley project or Square's OkHttp library instead.



Glide Image Loading Library

Fresco by Facebook

Fresco is a powerful system for displaying images in Android applications.


Fresco Github

In Android 4.x and lower, Fresco puts images in a special region of Android memory. This lets your application run faster - and suffer the dreaded OutOfMemoryError much less often.

Fresco Documentation

@LordRaydenMK 2018-05-16 21:03:32

Picasso is a library developed by Square

@Rahul Rawat 2013-02-12 07:10:14

Well, image loading time from the Internet has many solutions. You may also use the library Android-Query. It will give you all the required activity. Make sure what you want to do and read the library wiki page. And solve the image loading restriction.

This is my code:

    View v = convertView;
    if (v == null) {
        LayoutInflater vi = (LayoutInflater)getSystemService(Context.LAYOUT_INFLATER_SERVICE);
        v = vi.inflate(R.layout.row, null);

    ImageView imageview = (ImageView) v.findViewById(;
    AQuery aq = new AQuery(convertView);

    String imageUrl = "";, true, true, 0, 0, new BitmapAjaxCallback() {
        public void callback(String url, ImageView iv, Bitmap bm, AjaxStatus status) {

    return v;

It should be solve your lazy loading problem.

@Selim Raza 2017-04-24 09:13:58

Nice Work to me ,But Need a Jar file to include in your project. You can download that JAR file from here AQuery androidAQuery = new AQuery(this); link

@Samet 2014-06-21 08:55:34

Another way to do it, is through your adapter in a thread in your getView() method :

Thread pics_thread = new Thread(new Runnable() {
    public void run() {
        Bitmap bitmap = getPicture(url);
        if(bitmap != null) {
            runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {
                public void run() {


of course, you should always cache your images to avoid extra operations, you could put your images in a HashMap array, check if the image exists in the array, if not, proceed with the thread or else load the image from you HashMap array. Also always check that you are not leaking memory, bitmaps and drawables are often heavy on memory. It is up to you to optimize your code.

@The Original Android 2015-06-07 08:31:02

I like getting the bitmap in a different thread, of course. But the only issue I have with having this code in getView() is there will be many threads running for several images. And getView may try to load many or several images at one time.

@Phil 2013-08-16 20:06:30

I use droidQuery. There are two mechanisms for loading an image from a URL. The first (shorthand) is simply:


This can be added into an ArrayAdapter's getView(...) method very easily.

The longhand method will give a lot more control, and has options not even discussed here (such as cacheing and callbacks), but a basic implementation that specifies the output size as 200px x 200px can be found here:

$.ajax(new AjaxOptions().url(url)
    .success(new Function() {
        public void invoke($ droidQuery, Object... params) {
            myImageView.setImageBitmap((Bitmap) params[0]);
    .error(new Function() {
            AjaxError e = (AjaxError) params[0];
            Log.e("$", "Error " + e.status + ": " + e.error);

@Girish Patel 2015-02-05 12:45:50

You must try this Universal Loader is best. I am using this after done many RnD on lazy loading .

Universal Image Loader


  • Multithread image loading (async or sync)
  • Wide customization of ImageLoader's configuration (thread executors, downloader, decoder, memory and disk cache, display image options, etc.)
  • Many customization options for every display image call (stub images, caching switch, decoding options, Bitmap processing and displaying, etc.)
  • Listening loading process (including downloading progress)

Android 2.0+ support

enter image description here

@nostra13 2011-12-19 13:53:04

I recommend open source instrument Universal Image Loader. It is originally based on Fedor Vlasov's project LazyList and has been vastly improved since then.

  • Multithread image loading
  • Possibility of wide tuning ImageLoader's configuration (thread executors, downlaoder, decoder, memory and disc cache, display image options, and others)
  • Possibility of image caching in memory and/or on device's file sysytem (or SD card)
  • Possibility to "listen" loading process
  • Possibility to customize every display image call with separated options
  • Widget support
  • Android 2.0+ support

@AndroidGecko 2012-03-29 11:12:20

if you are looking for great "image loading" code that its creator treats and maintains as his precious baby (not only a one time solution), u just found it; big ups Nostra

@dinigo 2012-10-21 16:58:26

Really great work, but it lags a little bit my listview. If you could tell the best performace 'ImageLoader' build ... or maybe it's because the 'DisplayImageOptions'.

@kongkea 2012-10-25 07:30:52

I love this gridview so much but I can't use it for my tutorial. i am a beginner of android. I make application about gridview but my application was targetSdkVersion 15 so I need to use Asynctask for process in background thread. I used to use this gridview but it doesn't work. how can I use it in targetSdkVersion 15?

@nostra13 2012-10-25 11:03:48

You can create separate question with tag [universal-image-loader]

@moDev 2012-12-29 11:40:19

@NOSTRA Please have a look at my question…

@Shrikant 2013-01-07 06:22:21

great piece of code, but can i have progress dialog, stub and the image shown. Progress dialog if image is downloading and stub if not available???

@nostra13 2013-01-07 09:23:11

Use ImageLoadingListener for that?

@moDev 2013-04-16 08:48:30

@NOSTRA does this works for inbuilt images in the app??

@nostra13 2013-04-16 09:19:57

Yes, UIL supports images from drawables, assets or content provider. Read Readme.

@Nikunj Patel 2013-05-15 11:46:59

@NOSTRA how can i get number of complete downloaded images? is there are any listener for this

@Ankit Srivastava 2013-11-19 20:48:31

Does any one here know how i can use this library for local files or Uri from MediaStore??

@Core 2013-12-30 18:06:55

After reading the official android docs and trying to do this stuff myself, I'm pretty certain this library is the end all be all of image loading. Cannot upvote enough.

@Trilarion 2015-12-26 22:18:27


@KaliMa 2016-04-07 16:20:39

This seems like a great resource but I have no earthly idea how to actually use it. There are tons of files and settings in this thing compared to LazyList.

@redGREENblue 2014-06-08 09:04:32

Some answers have already mentioned using various image libraries like Universal Image Loader and androidimageloader etc. This is an old quesion but for anyone still looking for something like this, there are several such libraries for image loading/caching.

@Chirag Ghori 2013-09-03 12:41:14

You can try the Aquery Android library for lazy loading image and listview... The below code may help you..... download library from here.

AQuery aq = new AQuery(mContext);"");

@DiegoAlt 2014-01-27 05:33:20

URLImageViewHelper is an amazing library that helps you to do that.

@user2779311 2013-12-16 13:04:26

Give Aquery a try. It has amazingly simple methods to load and cache images asynchronously.

@Pratik Dasa 2013-07-29 07:06:02

I can recommend a different way that works like a charm: Android Query.

You can download that JAR file from here

AQuery androidAQuery = new AQuery(this);

As an example: IMAGEVIEW).image(YOUR IMAGE TO LOAD, true, true, getDeviceWidth(), ANY DEFAULT IMAGE YOU WANT TO SHOW);

It's very fast and accurate, and using this you can find many more features like animation when loading, getting a bitmap (if needed), etc.

@j2emanue 2013-07-21 17:51:09

I had this issue and implemented lruCache. I believe you need API 12 and above or use the compatiblity v4 library. lurCache is fast memory, but it also has a budget, so if you're worried about that you can use a diskcache... It's all described in Caching Bitmaps.

I'll now provide my implementation which is a singleton I call from anywhere like this:

//Where the first is a string and the other is a imageview to load.

DownloadImageTask.getInstance().loadBitmap(avatarURL, iv_avatar);

Here's the ideal code to cache and then call the above in getView of an adapter when retrieving the web image:

public class DownloadImageTask {

    private LruCache<String, Bitmap> mMemoryCache;

    /* Create a singleton class to call this from multiple classes */

    private static DownloadImageTask instance = null;

    public static DownloadImageTask getInstance() {
        if (instance == null) {
            instance = new DownloadImageTask();
        return instance;

    //Lock the constructor from public instances
    private DownloadImageTask() {

        // Get max available VM memory, exceeding this amount will throw an
        // OutOfMemory exception. Stored in kilobytes as LruCache takes an
        // int in its constructor.

        // Use 1/8th of the available memory for this memory cache.
        final int cacheSize = maxMemory / 8;

        mMemoryCache = new LruCache<String, Bitmap>(cacheSize) {
            protected int sizeOf(String key, Bitmap bitmap) {
                // The cache size will be measured in kilobytes rather than
                // number of items.
                return bitmap.getByteCount() / 1024;

    public void loadBitmap(String avatarURL, ImageView imageView) {
        final String imageKey = String.valueOf(avatarURL);

        final Bitmap bitmap = getBitmapFromMemCache(imageKey);
        if (bitmap != null) {
        } else {

            new DownloadImageTaskViaWeb(imageView).execute(avatarURL);

    private void addBitmapToMemoryCache(String key, Bitmap bitmap) {
        if (getBitmapFromMemCache(key) == null) {
            mMemoryCache.put(key, bitmap);

    private Bitmap getBitmapFromMemCache(String key) {
        return mMemoryCache.get(key);

    /* A background process that opens a http stream and decodes a web image. */

    class DownloadImageTaskViaWeb extends AsyncTask<String, Void, Bitmap> {
        ImageView bmImage;

        public DownloadImageTaskViaWeb(ImageView bmImage) {
            this.bmImage = bmImage;

        protected Bitmap doInBackground(String... urls) {

            String urldisplay = urls[0];
            Bitmap mIcon = null;
            try {
                InputStream in = new;
                mIcon = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(in);

            catch (Exception e) {
                Log.e("Error", e.getMessage());

            addBitmapToMemoryCache(String.valueOf(urldisplay), mIcon);

            return mIcon;

        /* After decoding we update the view on the main UI. */
        protected void onPostExecute(Bitmap result) {

@droidment 2013-06-13 15:17:05

I have been using NetworkImageView from the new Android Volley Library, and it seems to be working pretty well. Apparently, this is the same view that is used in Google Play and other new Google applications. Definitely worth checking out.

@Alexander Sidikov Pfeif 2014-09-07 22:19:10

I think this is the best solution - the other answers are very old - volley is realy fast and combined with jake warthons disklrucache its a perfekt solution - i tried a lot of others but not one is stable and fast as volley

@yanchenko 2013-05-06 09:48:19

DroidParts has ImageFetcher that requires zero configuration to get started.

  • Uses a disk & in-memory Least Recently Used (LRU) cache.
  • Efficiently decodes images.
  • Supports modifying bitmaps in background thread.
  • Has simple cross-fade.
  • Has image loading progress callback.

Clone DroidPartsGram for an example:

Enter image description here

@masha 2014-01-13 10:37:02

Hi, I've had a look at the code examples but i'm having issues using ImageFetcher with an ArrayAdapter, would you mind looking at my question?… Thanks =]

@Nicolas Jafelle 2013-02-12 23:46:22

Check my fork of LazyList. Basically, I improve the LazyList by delaying the call of the ImageView and create two methods:

  1. When you need to put something like "Loading image..."
  2. When you need to show the downloaded image.

I also improved the ImageLoader by implementing a singleton in this object.

@Ritesh Kumar Dubey 2012-12-11 18:33:24

I think this issue is very popular among Android developers, and there are plenty of such libraries that claims to resolve this issue, but only a few of them seems to be on the mark. AQuery is one such library, but it is better than most of them in all aspects and is worth trying for.

@Thomas Ahle 2010-08-12 11:07:32

Multithreading For Performance, a tutorial by Gilles Debunne.

This is from the Android Developers Blog. The suggested code uses:

  • AsyncTasks.
  • A hard, limited size, FIFO cache.
  • A soft, easily garbage collect-ed cache.
  • A placeholder Drawable while you download.

enter image description here

@Adinia 2011-02-03 10:04:23

But it's built on Android 2.2(Froyo) ...

@Thomas Ahle 2011-02-05 02:22:08

It works fine in 2.1 as well. Just don't use AndroidHttpClient.

@Adinia 2011-02-09 08:02:54

@thomas-ahle Thank you, I saw AndroidHttpClient was giving errors in 2.1, as it's implemented from 2.2, but didn't really tried to find something else to replace it.

@Thomas Ahle 2011-02-22 12:49:33

@Adina You are right, I forgot. However there is nothing in the recipe that can't just as well be done with a normal HttpClient.

@Andro Selva 2012-05-07 13:35:47

Still OOM remains...

@Muhammad Ahmed AbuTalib 2014-05-26 07:46:35

I have heard at several places , that Google does not recommend soft references because the android kernel is very eager to collect these references compared to the earlier versions of the system .

@Nikhil Gupta 2013-07-18 07:16:56

public class ImageDownloader {

Map<String, Bitmap> imageCache;

public ImageDownloader() {
    imageCache = new HashMap<String, Bitmap>();


// download function
public void download(String url, ImageView imageView) {
    if (cancelPotentialDownload(url, imageView)) {

        // Caching code right here
        String filename = String.valueOf(url.hashCode());
        File f = new File(getCacheDirectory(imageView.getContext()),

        // Is the bitmap in our memory cache?
        Bitmap bitmap = null;

        bitmap = (Bitmap) imageCache.get(f.getPath());

        if (bitmap == null) {

            bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeFile(f.getPath());

            if (bitmap != null) {
                imageCache.put(f.getPath(), bitmap);

        // No? download it
        if (bitmap == null) {
            try {
                BitmapDownloaderTask task = new BitmapDownloaderTask(
                DownloadedDrawable downloadedDrawable = new DownloadedDrawable(
            } catch (Exception e) {
                Log.e("Error==>", e.toString());

        } else {
            // Yes? set the image

// cancel a download (internal only)
private static boolean cancelPotentialDownload(String url,
        ImageView imageView) {
    BitmapDownloaderTask bitmapDownloaderTask = getBitmapDownloaderTask(imageView);

    if (bitmapDownloaderTask != null) {
        String bitmapUrl = bitmapDownloaderTask.url;
        } else {
            // The same URL is already being downloaded.
            return false;
    return true;

// gets an existing download if one exists for the imageview
private static BitmapDownloaderTask getBitmapDownloaderTask(
        ImageView imageView) {
    if (imageView != null) {
        Drawable drawable = imageView.getDrawable();
        if (drawable instanceof DownloadedDrawable) {
            DownloadedDrawable downloadedDrawable = (DownloadedDrawable) drawable;
            return downloadedDrawable.getBitmapDownloaderTask();
    return null;

// our caching functions
// Find the dir to save cached images
private static File getCacheDirectory(Context context) {
    String sdState = android.os.Environment.getExternalStorageState();
    File cacheDir;

    if (sdState.equals(android.os.Environment.MEDIA_MOUNTED)) {
        File sdDir = android.os.Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory();

        // TODO : Change your diretcory here
        cacheDir = new File(sdDir, "data/ToDo/images");
    } else
        cacheDir = context.getCacheDir();

    if (!cacheDir.exists())
    return cacheDir;

private void writeFile(Bitmap bmp, File f) {
    FileOutputStream out = null;

    try {
        out = new FileOutputStream(f);
        bmp.compress(Bitmap.CompressFormat.PNG, 80, out);
    } catch (Exception e) {
    } finally {
        try {
            if (out != null)
        } catch (Exception ex) {

// download asynctask
public class BitmapDownloaderTask extends AsyncTask<String, Void, Bitmap> {
    private String url;
    private final WeakReference<ImageView> imageViewReference;

    public BitmapDownloaderTask(ImageView imageView) {
        imageViewReference = new WeakReference<ImageView>(imageView);

    // Actual download method, run in the task thread
    protected Bitmap doInBackground(String... params) {
        url = (String) params[0];
        return downloadBitmap(params[0]);

    protected void onPostExecute(Bitmap bitmap) {
        if (isCancelled()) {
            bitmap = null;

        if (imageViewReference != null) {
            ImageView imageView = imageViewReference.get();
            BitmapDownloaderTask bitmapDownloaderTask = getBitmapDownloaderTask(imageView);
            // Change bitmap only if this process is still associated with
            // it
            if (this == bitmapDownloaderTask) {

                // cache the image

                String filename = String.valueOf(url.hashCode());
                File f = new File(
                        getCacheDirectory(imageView.getContext()), filename);

                imageCache.put(f.getPath(), bitmap);

                writeFile(bitmap, f);


static class DownloadedDrawable extends ColorDrawable {
    private final WeakReference<BitmapDownloaderTask> bitmapDownloaderTaskReference;

    public DownloadedDrawable(BitmapDownloaderTask bitmapDownloaderTask) {
        bitmapDownloaderTaskReference = new WeakReference<BitmapDownloaderTask>(

    public BitmapDownloaderTask getBitmapDownloaderTask() {
        return bitmapDownloaderTaskReference.get();

// the actual download code
static Bitmap downloadBitmap(String url) {
    HttpParams params = new BasicHttpParams();
    HttpClient client = new DefaultHttpClient(params);
    final HttpGet getRequest = new HttpGet(url);

    try {
        HttpResponse response = client.execute(getRequest);
        final int statusCode = response.getStatusLine().getStatusCode();
        if (statusCode != HttpStatus.SC_OK) {
            Log.w("ImageDownloader", "Error " + statusCode
                    + " while retrieving bitmap from " + url);
            return null;

        final HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity();
        if (entity != null) {
            InputStream inputStream = null;
            try {
                inputStream = entity.getContent();
                final Bitmap bitmap = BitmapFactory
                return bitmap;
            } finally {
                if (inputStream != null) {
    } catch (Exception e) {
        // Could provide a more explicit error message for IOException or
        // IllegalStateException
        Log.w("ImageDownloader", "Error while retrieving bitmap from "
                + url + e.toString());
    } finally {
        if (client != null) {
            // client.close();
    return null;

@howettl 2013-10-15 23:22:19

This is a common problem on Android that has been solved in many ways by many people. In my opinion the best solution I've seen is the relatively new library called Picasso. Here are the highlights:

  • Open source, but headed up by Jake Wharton of ActionBarSherlock fame.
  • Asynchronously load images from network or app resources with one line of code
  • Automatic ListView detection
  • Automatic disk and memory caching
  • Can do custom transformations
  • Lots of configurable options
  • Super simple API
  • Frequently updated

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