How can I pass a Bitmap object from one activity to another

If the image is too large and you can't save&load it to the storage, you should consider just using a global static reference to the bitmap (inside the receiving activity), which will be reset to null on onDestory, only if "isChangingConfigurations" returns true.


Actually, passing a bitmap as a Parcelable will result in a "JAVA BINDER FAILURE" error. Try passing the bitmap as a byte array and building it for display in the next activity.

I shared my solution here:
how do you pass images (bitmaps) between android activities using bundles?


Passsing bitmap as parceable in bundle between activity is not a good idea because of size limitation of Parceable(1mb). You can store the bitmap in a file in internal storage and retrieve the stored bitmap in several activities. Here's some sample code.

To store bitmap in a file myImage in internal storage:

public String createImageFromBitmap(Bitmap bitmap) {
    String fileName = "myImage";//no .png or .jpg needed
    try {
        ByteArrayOutputStream bytes = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
        bitmap.compress(Bitmap.CompressFormat.JPEG, 100, bytes);
        FileOutputStream fo = openFileOutput(fileName, Context.MODE_PRIVATE);
        fo.write(bytes.toByteArray());
        // remember close file output
        fo.close();
    } catch (Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
        fileName = null;
    }
    return fileName;
}

Then in the next activity you can decode this file myImage to a bitmap using following code:

//here context can be anything like getActivity() for fragment, this or MainActivity.this
Bitmap bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(context.openFileInput("myImage"));

Note A lot of checking for null and scaling bitmap's is ommited.


Bitmap implements Parcelable, so you could always pass it with the intent:

Intent intent = new Intent(this, NewActivity.class);
intent.putExtra("BitmapImage", bitmap);

and retrieve it on the other end:

Intent intent = getIntent(); 
Bitmap bitmap = (Bitmap) intent.getParcelableExtra("BitmapImage");