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I am downloading a JSON string and converting it to JSONArray. Im putting it into a listview and need to be able to delete from that listview later, and since JSONArray has no .remove method (Thanks Obama), I am trying to convert it to an arraylist.

here is my JSON (the array.toString()):

"thumb_url":"tb1370913834.jpg", "event_id":"15","count":"44", "event_tagline":"this is a tagline", "event_name":"5th birthday", "event_end":"1370919600", "event_start":"1370876400"

I need to get it into an array and be able to call the strings by their respective keys. Appreciate any help!

When you say keys, doesn't that imply a Dictionary (Map in Android) of some sort? An array will be index-based. Take a look at developer.android.com/reference/java/util/Map.html for how to create and use. – brianestey Jun 11, 2013 at 6:02 Can a map be used to populate a listview with a custom baseadapter? Id rather not use indexes in case the JSON ever changes order. – TheGeekNess Jun 11, 2013 at 16:26 ListView will get objects from the adapter by index, so in any case you will need to maintain the list in some order. If you want to maintain the order of the keys (and know what the keys are at compile time), you can hard-code an array of those keys in the order you like and use that for your ordering when fetching from the Map. – brianestey Jun 12, 2013 at 2:02

ArrayList<String> listdata = new ArrayList<String>();     
JSONArray jArray = (JSONArray)jsonObject; 
if (jArray != null) { 
   for (int i=0;i<jArray.length();i++){ 
    listdata.add(jArray.getString(i));
                And listdata.add(jArray.optJSONObject(i)); if your listdata is a JSONObject arrayList. ArrayList<JSONObject> listdata = new ArrayList<JSONObject>(); 
– C--
                Jul 19, 2014 at 12:55
                Good snippet. Just in case if anyone wants: there is a helper class that converts JSONObject/JSONArray to a standard Map/List on the github gist.github.com/codebutler/2339666
– inexcii
                Aug 27, 2014 at 1:54
I've done it using Gson (by Google).
Add the following line to your module's build.gradle:
dependencies {
  // ...
  // Note that `compile` will be deprecated. Use `implementation` instead.
  // See https://stackoverflow.com/a/44409111 for more info
  implementation 'com.google.code.gson:gson:2.8.2'
JSON string:
private String jsonString = "[\n" +
            "        {\n" +
            "                \"id\": \"c200\",\n" +
            "                \"name\": \"Ravi Tamada\",\n" +
            "                \"email\": \"ravi@gmail.com\",\n" +
            "                \"address\": \"xx-xx-xxxx,x - street, x - country\",\n" +
            "                \"gender\" : \"male\",\n" +
            "                \"phone\": {\n" +
            "                    \"mobile\": \"+91 0000000000\",\n" +
            "                    \"home\": \"00 000000\",\n" +
            "                    \"office\": \"00 000000\"\n" +
            "                }\n" +
            "        },\n" +
            "        {\n" +
            "                \"id\": \"c201\",\n" +
            "                \"name\": \"Johnny Depp\",\n" +
            "                \"email\": \"johnny_depp@gmail.com\",\n" +
            "                \"address\": \"xx-xx-xxxx,x - street, x - country\",\n" +
            "                \"gender\" : \"male\",\n" +
            "                \"phone\": {\n" +
            "                    \"mobile\": \"+91 0000000000\",\n" +
            "                    \"home\": \"00 000000\",\n" +
            "                    \"office\": \"00 000000\"\n" +
            "                }\n" +
            "        },\n" +
            "        {\n" +
            "                \"id\": \"c202\",\n" +
            "                \"name\": \"Leonardo Dicaprio\",\n" +
            "                \"email\": \"leonardo_dicaprio@gmail.com\",\n" +
            "                \"address\": \"xx-xx-xxxx,x - street, x - country\",\n" +
            "                \"gender\" : \"male\",\n" +
            "                \"phone\": {\n" +
            "                    \"mobile\": \"+91 0000000000\",\n" +
            "                    \"home\": \"00 000000\",\n" +
            "                    \"office\": \"00 000000\"\n" +
            "                }\n" +
            "        },\n" +
            "        {\n" +
            "                \"id\": \"c203\",\n" +
            "                \"name\": \"John Wayne\",\n" +
            "                \"email\": \"john_wayne@gmail.com\",\n" +
            "                \"address\": \"xx-xx-xxxx,x - street, x - country\",\n" +
            "                \"gender\" : \"male\",\n" +
            "                \"phone\": {\n" +
            "                    \"mobile\": \"+91 0000000000\",\n" +
            "                    \"home\": \"00 000000\",\n" +
            "                    \"office\": \"00 000000\"\n" +
            "                }\n" +
            "        },\n" +
            "        {\n" +
            "                \"id\": \"c204\",\n" +
            "                \"name\": \"Angelina Jolie\",\n" +
            "                \"email\": \"angelina_jolie@gmail.com\",\n" +
            "                \"address\": \"xx-xx-xxxx,x - street, x - country\",\n" +
            "                \"gender\" : \"female\",\n" +
            "                \"phone\": {\n" +
            "                    \"mobile\": \"+91 0000000000\",\n" +
            "                    \"home\": \"00 000000\",\n" +
            "                    \"office\": \"00 000000\"\n" +
            "                }\n" +
            "        },\n" +
            "        {\n" +
            "                \"id\": \"c205\",\n" +
            "                \"name\": \"Dido\",\n" +
            "                \"email\": \"dido@gmail.com\",\n" +
            "                \"address\": \"xx-xx-xxxx,x - street, x - country\",\n" +
            "                \"gender\" : \"female\",\n" +
            "                \"phone\": {\n" +
            "                    \"mobile\": \"+91 0000000000\",\n" +
            "                    \"home\": \"00 000000\",\n" +
            "                    \"office\": \"00 000000\"\n" +
            "                }\n" +
            "        },\n" +
            "        {\n" +
            "                \"id\": \"c206\",\n" +
            "                \"name\": \"Adele\",\n" +
            "                \"email\": \"adele@gmail.com\",\n" +
            "                \"address\": \"xx-xx-xxxx,x - street, x - country\",\n" +
            "                \"gender\" : \"female\",\n" +
            "                \"phone\": {\n" +
            "                    \"mobile\": \"+91 0000000000\",\n" +
            "                    \"home\": \"00 000000\",\n" +
            "                    \"office\": \"00 000000\"\n" +
            "                }\n" +
            "        },\n" +
            "        {\n" +
            "                \"id\": \"c207\",\n" +
            "                \"name\": \"Hugh Jackman\",\n" +
            "                \"email\": \"hugh_jackman@gmail.com\",\n" +
            "                \"address\": \"xx-xx-xxxx,x - street, x - country\",\n" +
            "                \"gender\" : \"male\",\n" +
            "                \"phone\": {\n" +
            "                    \"mobile\": \"+91 0000000000\",\n" +
            "                    \"home\": \"00 000000\",\n" +
            "                    \"office\": \"00 000000\"\n" +
            "                }\n" +
            "        },\n" +
            "        {\n" +
            "                \"id\": \"c208\",\n" +
            "                \"name\": \"Will Smith\",\n" +
            "                \"email\": \"will_smith@gmail.com\",\n" +
            "                \"address\": \"xx-xx-xxxx,x - street, x - country\",\n" +
            "                \"gender\" : \"male\",\n" +
            "                \"phone\": {\n" +
            "                    \"mobile\": \"+91 0000000000\",\n" +
            "                    \"home\": \"00 000000\",\n" +
            "                    \"office\": \"00 000000\"\n" +
            "                }\n" +
            "        },\n" +
            "        {\n" +
            "                \"id\": \"c209\",\n" +
            "                \"name\": \"Clint Eastwood\",\n" +
            "                \"email\": \"clint_eastwood@gmail.com\",\n" +
            "                \"address\": \"xx-xx-xxxx,x - street, x - country\",\n" +
            "                \"gender\" : \"male\",\n" +
            "                \"phone\": {\n" +
            "                    \"mobile\": \"+91 0000000000\",\n" +
            "                    \"home\": \"00 000000\",\n" +
            "                    \"office\": \"00 000000\"\n" +
            "                }\n" +
            "        },\n" +
            "        {\n" +
            "                \"id\": \"c2010\",\n" +
            "                \"name\": \"Barack Obama\",\n" +
            "                \"email\": \"barack_obama@gmail.com\",\n" +
            "                \"address\": \"xx-xx-xxxx,x - street, x - country\",\n" +
            "                \"gender\" : \"male\",\n" +
            "                \"phone\": {\n" +
            "                    \"mobile\": \"+91 0000000000\",\n" +
            "                    \"home\": \"00 000000\",\n" +
            "                    \"office\": \"00 000000\"\n" +
            "                }\n" +
            "        },\n" +
            "        {\n" +
            "                \"id\": \"c2011\",\n" +
            "                \"name\": \"Kate Winslet\",\n" +
            "                \"email\": \"kate_winslet@gmail.com\",\n" +
            "                \"address\": \"xx-xx-xxxx,x - street, x - country\",\n" +
            "                \"gender\" : \"female\",\n" +
            "                \"phone\": {\n" +
            "                    \"mobile\": \"+91 0000000000\",\n" +
            "                    \"home\": \"00 000000\",\n" +
            "                    \"office\": \"00 000000\"\n" +
            "                }\n" +
            "        },\n" +
            "        {\n" +
            "                \"id\": \"c2012\",\n" +
            "                \"name\": \"Eminem\",\n" +
            "                \"email\": \"eminem@gmail.com\",\n" +
            "                \"address\": \"xx-xx-xxxx,x - street, x - country\",\n" +
            "                \"gender\" : \"male\",\n" +
            "                \"phone\": {\n" +
            "                    \"mobile\": \"+91 0000000000\",\n" +
            "                    \"home\": \"00 000000\",\n" +
            "                    \"office\": \"00 000000\"\n" +
            "                }\n" +
            "        }\n" +
            "    ]";
ContactModel.java: 
public class ContactModel {
     public String id;
     public String name;
     public String email;
Code for converting a JSON string to ArrayList<Model>:
Note: You have to import java.lang.reflect.Type;:
// Top of file
import java.lang.reflect.Type;
// ...
private void parseJSON() {
    Gson gson = new Gson();
    Type type = new TypeToken<List<ContactModel>>(){}.getType();
    List<ContactModel> contactList = gson.fromJson(jsonString, type);
    for (ContactModel contact : contactList){
        Log.i("Contact Details", contact.id + "-" + contact.name + "-" + contact.email);
Hope this will help you.
                THREE LINES...DONE!  I think this should have been the accepted answer since (a) it's only three lines of code that work beautifully, and (b) few of the answers actually perform a typed translation from JSONArray to List<CustomObject>.  Thank you!
– John Ward
                Jan 5, 2017 at 23:27
                It must be a JSONArray, the JSONElement seems not work. so, use the getAsJsonArray() method appearently. Thank you!
– Jiaheng Tao
                Mar 13, 2019 at 10:09
                Exactly what I needed, thanks! Note: You have to import these:  java.lang.reflect.Type;  com.google.gson.reflect.TypeToken;
– Chandrani H
                Jan 14, 2020 at 6:11
    public static ArrayList<Object> convert(JSONArray jArr)
        ArrayList<Object> list = new ArrayList<Object>();
        try {
            for (int i=0, l=jArr.length(); i<l; i++){
                 list.add(jArr.get(i));
        } catch (JSONException e) {}
        return list;
    public static JSONArray convert(Collection<Object> list)
        return new JSONArray(list);
Usage:
ArrayList<Object> list = ArrayUtil.convert(jArray);
JSONArray jArr = ArrayUtil.convert(list);
                Kudos to this answer. U solved my day! I spent 2 hrs trying to fix this. Actually my problem was I wanted to put the converted JSONArray to a list so I could put the List in a HashMap, so this util worked for me pretty well.  Thanks @Vasilii Suricov
– Jose Mhlanga
                Jul 26, 2020 at 10:30
try this way
Simply loop through that, building your own array. This code assumes it's an array of strings, it shouldn't be hard to modify to suit your particular array structure.
JSONArray jsonArray = new JSONArray(jsonArrayString);
List<String> list = new ArrayList<String>();
for (int i=0; i<jsonArray.length(); i++) {
    list.add( jsonArray.getString(i) );
Instead of converting the JSON string to an ArrayList or even a Map, you can just create a JSONObject itself.  This object has the ability to get string values by key, as you want and also to remove objects.
To create a JSONObject from a properly formatted JSON string, you simply call the  appropriate constructor.
JSONObject json = new JSONObject(jsonString);
                The problem I run into with this solution in particular, is that when dealing with JSONObject's and JSONArray's is they throw JSONException's. Sometimes it's handy to pass the contents of a JSONArray to a function that shouldn't have to be aware of JSON.
– Aaron Dougherty
                Apr 19, 2015 at 22:21
                I agree.  I would use the JSONObject as part of parsing the JSON text into a usable model object.  Any JSONException that is raised would indicate a problem with the source JSON, meaning you can't parse it into a JSONArray or JSONObject, let alone a different model object.
– brianestey
                Apr 20, 2015 at 22:32
                The only problem with this is that JSONArray.getString(...) throws an exception which has to be handled inside of the mapping, so you end up with List<String> listOfStrings = IntStream.range(0, array.length()).mapToObj(i -> {	try {	return array.getString(i); } catch (JSONException e) { throw new AssertionFailedError("JSONArray is not a list of Strings! " + e.getMessage()); } }).collect(Collectors.toList()); which is not that elegant any more. So I'll go with a foreach :)
– LazR
                Mar 4, 2019 at 13:29
                This is the best answer here (imho) but would be elegant if there was a way to not need to access the jsonArray reference more than once.
– djangofan
                Apr 22, 2019 at 21:32
List<YourPojoObject> yourPojos = new ArrayList<YourPojoObject>();
JSONObject jsonObject = new JSONObject(jsonString);
YourPojoObject yourPojo = new YourPojoObject();
yourPojo.setId(jsonObject.getString("idName"));
yourPojos.add(yourPojo);
I have fast solution. Just create a file ArrayUtil.java
ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper(); 
List<Student> list = Arrays.asList(mapper.readValue(jsonString, Student[].class));
try {
    JSONArray jsonArr = new JSONArray("Your json string array");
    List<AllAppModel> lstExtrextData = new ArrayList<>();
    for (int i = 0; i < jsonArr.length(); i++) {
        JSONObject jsonObj = jsonArr.getJSONObject(i);
        AllAppModel data = new AllAppModel();
        data.setAppName(jsonObj.getString("appName"));
        data.setPackageName(jsonObj.getString("packageName"));
        data.setUid(jsonObj.getInt("uid"));
        data.setSelected(jsonObj.getBoolean("isSelected"));
        data.setSystemApp(jsonObj.getBoolean("isSystemApp"));
        data.setFav(jsonObj.getBoolean("isFav"));
        lstExtrextData.add(data);
} catch (JSONException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
it will return you List of PoJo class object.
Just going by the original subject of the thread:
converting jsonarray to list (used jackson jsonarray and object mapper here):
ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
JSONArray array = new JSONArray();
array.put("IND");
array.put("CHN");
List<String> list = mapper.readValue(array.toString(), List.class);
If the Json object consists an array of strings, then there is a way where we need not even use the JSONArray.
if the Json is not in string format, we can convert the json into a string.
Now if Json string is:
String value = "[\"value1\",\"value2\"]";
Then we can use to get the List of String:
List<String> result = new Gson().fromJson(value, List.class);
    List<Student> students = new ArrayList<>();
    JSONArray jsonArray = new JSONArray(stringJsonContainArray);
    for (int i = 0; i < jsonArray.length(); i++) {
        Student student = new Gson().fromJson(jsonArray.get(i).toString(), Student.class);
        students.add(student);
    return students;
   JSONArray data = jsonObject.getJSONArray("some-node");
   List<JSONObject> list = StreamSupport.stream(data.spliterator(), false)
                .map(e -> (JSONObject)e)
                .collect(Collectors.toList());
                Not working... Getting error - Type mismatch: cannot convert from Object to List<JSONObject>
– Chetan Oswal
                Feb 11, 2022 at 15:32
Single line code that I used to convert json array to ArrayList for the below listed json string stored in a variable named classData.
List<String> names = new Gson().fromJson(classData.getAsJsonObject("result").getAsJsonArray("names").toString(), new TypeToken<List<String>>(){}.getType());
    "result": {
        "id": "104297",
        "class": "Chemistry",
        "total": 57,
        "names": [
            "Alex",
            "Dan",
            "Rex",
            "Tony",
            "Elizabeth"
public static List<JSONObject> getJSONObjectListFromJSONArray(JSONArray array) 
        throws JSONException {
  ArrayList<JSONObject> jsonObjects = new ArrayList<>();
  for (int i = 0; 
           i < (array != null ? array.length() : 0);           
           jsonObjects.add(array.getJSONObject(i++))
  return jsonObjects;
public static <T> List<T> getList(JSONArray jsonArray) throws Exception {
    List<T> list = new ArrayList<>(jsonArray.length());
    for (int i = 0; i < jsonArray.length(); i++) {
        list.add((T)jsonArray.get(i));
    return list;
//Usage
List<String> listKeyString = getList(dataJsonObject.getJSONArray("keyString"));
ArrayList<String> listdata = new ArrayList<String>();     
JSONArray jArray = (JSONArray)jsonObject; 
if (jArray != null) { 
 listdata.addAll(jArray);
@simplified
A simpler Java 8 alternative:
JSONArray data = new JSONArray(); //create data from this -> [{"thumb_url":"tb-1370913834.jpg","event_id":...}]
List<JSONObject> list = data.stream().map(o -> (JSONObject) o).collect(Collectors.toList());
                Tried this. Does not work. Getting error - Type mismatch: cannot convert from Object to List<JSONObject>
– Chetan Oswal
                Feb 11, 2022 at 15:34
With Kotlin, you can avoid a loop by wrapping the JSONArray with a MutableList, e.g.
val artistMetadata = player.metadata.optJSONArray("artist")
val artists = MutableList<String>(artistMetadata.length()) { i -> artistMetadata.getString(i)}
public static List<String> convertJsonArrayToStringList(JsonArray ja){
    List<String> result = new ArrayList<String>();     
    for(JsonElement je: ja)
        result.add(je.getAsString());
    return result;
This can do (Java >= 8):
    // Functional (variable)
    Function<JSONArray, ArrayList<String>> convert = jsonArray -> (ArrayList<String>) jsonArray.stream()
        .map(item -> item.toString())
        .collect(Collectors.toList());
    // Call
    convert.apply(jsonArray);
    // Regular method (OOP)
    private Function<JSONArray, ArrayList<String>> convert() {
        return jsonArray -> (ArrayList<String>) jsonArray.stream()
            .map(item -> item.toString())
            .collect(Collectors.toList());
   // Call
   convert().apply(jsonArray);
        
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