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wtf is leakcanary?

square/leakcanary — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-06-20

★ 29,924KotlinAudience · developerComplexity · 2/5Setup · easy

TL;DR

LeakCanary is an Android development library that automatically detects memory leaks in your app while you test it, pinpointing exactly which objects are being held in memory unnecessarily so you can fix the cause before shipping.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((leakcanary))
    What it does
      Detect memory leaks
      Report leak traces
      Identify held objects
    How it works
      Runs during testing
      Watches allocations
      Sends notifications
    Use cases
      Android app debugging
      Performance profiling
    Tech stack
      Kotlin
      Android SDK
    Audience
      Android developers
      Mobile engineers

Code map

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Why would anyone build with this?

REASON 1

Automatically detect memory leaks during manual testing of an Android app without writing any detection code yourself.

REASON 2

Identify exactly which object chain is causing a leak so you can fix the root cause rather than guessing at the problem.

REASON 3

Add leak detection to an Android project with a single dependency line and no additional configuration.

What's in the stack?

Kotlin

How it stacks up

square/leakcanaryalibaba/p3csignalapp/signal-android
Stars29,92430,83828,768
LanguageKotlinKotlinKotlin
Setup difficultyeasyeasyhard
Complexity2/52/54/5
Audiencedeveloperdeveloperdeveloper

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you spin it up?

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

Add one Gradle dependency line and LeakCanary starts working automatically, no configuration or code changes required.

Wtf does this do

LeakCanary is a library for Android apps that automatically detects memory leaks. A memory leak happens when an app holds onto chunks of memory it no longer needs, which over time causes the app to use more and more RAM, slow down, or crash. LeakCanary runs alongside your Android app during development, watches for these leaks, and reports exactly which objects are being held unnecessarily so developers can track down and fix the problem. Written in Kotlin, it integrates directly into Android projects.

Yoink these prompts

Prompt 1
How do I add LeakCanary to my Android project and what happens the first time it detects a memory leak, what does the notification look like and where do I find the full leak trace?
Prompt 2
LeakCanary reported a leak in my Android Fragment. Show me how to read the leak trace it generates to find which line in my code is holding a reference it shouldn't keep.
Prompt 3
What is the difference between how LeakCanary detects Activity leaks versus Fragment leaks in an Android app, and does it work with Jetpack Compose screens?
Prompt 4
I want LeakCanary to only run in debug builds and not appear in my release APK. Show me how to configure the Gradle dependency so it is excluded from production builds.

Frequently asked questions

wtf is leakcanary?

LeakCanary is an Android development library that automatically detects memory leaks in your app while you test it, pinpointing exactly which objects are being held in memory unnecessarily so you can fix the cause before shipping.

What language is leakcanary written in?

Mainly Kotlin. The stack also includes Kotlin.

How hard is leakcanary to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated easy, with roughly 5min to a first successful run.

Who is leakcanary for?

Mainly developer.

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