Mastering Screen Lifecycle in Jetpack Compose Navigation

When developing with Jetpack Compose, a common challenge is detecting when a screen becomes visible (to refresh data) or when it moves to the background (to pause a video).

While Compose provides onDispose, this only triggers when a Composable is completely removed from the UI tree. It cannot detect when a screen is still in the backstack but no longer visible to the user.

In this post, we’ll explore how to leverage the fact that Navigation Compose uses NavBackStackEntry as a LifecycleOwner to perfectly manage screen-level events.

🧑🏻‍💻 1. The Core: Who is the LocalLifecycleOwner?

In Compose, you can access the current lifecycle via LocalLifecycleOwner.current. However, its identity changes depending on your app's architecture:

Directly under an Activity: LifecycleOwner = Activity
Using Navigation Compose: LifecycleOwner = NavBackStackEntry

When using Navigation Compose, each destination is wrapped in a NavBackStackEntry. When you navigate from Screen A to Screen B, the Activity remains RESUMED, but Screen A’s NavBackStackEntry transitions to the STOPPED state.

By monitoring this, you can capture lifecycle events specific to that individual screen.

🧑🏻‍💻 2. The Solution: Implementing ScreenLifecycleObserver

To make this reusable, we can create a custom Composable function that observes these state changes safely.

🧑🏻‍💻 3. Real-World Patterns

A. Refreshing Data on Screen Return

Using LaunchedEffect(Unit) only runs once when the screen is first created. If you want to refresh data every time a user navigates back to the screen, use ON_RESUME.

B. Pausing and Resuming Video

Automatically pause video when the user navigates away or minimizes the app, and resume it when they return.

C. Tracking Screen Time (Analytics)

Start a timer on ON_RESUME and send the duration on ON_PAUSE.

🧑🏻‍💻 Summary: When to Use What?

Finally, let's distinguish between onDispose and Lifecycle events:

If you are using Navigation Compose, LocalLifecycleOwner.current is a powerful tool. Using it correctly ensures a robust app that respects system resources and provides a seamless user experience.

I hope this guide helps you manage screen lifecycles in your Compose projects!