Android 16 may bring predictive back support to three-button navigation

I’m sure this has happened to you at least once in the past: You press Android’s back button, and instead of an app taking you to the screen you were expecting, the button exits the app entirely. This is frustrating for users as it can cause them to lose progress, and it’s also frustrating for developers as it reduces usage. To solve this problem, Google created predictive back, a feature that lets you preview where navigating back will actually take you. Currently, predictive back doesn’t work if you use three-button navigation, but that’s set to change in this year’s Android 16 update.

Predictive back is a feature that Google has been working on for a few years now. It was first introduced as a developer option in Android 13 and became enabled by default in Android 15. It lets you preview the destination of the back gesture before you fully complete it, allowing you to decide whether to commit to going back or to stay on the current screen. If going back will take you to your phone’s home screen, you’ll even see a preview of your current home screen as you swipe inward, making it much less likely you’ll accidentally exit an app.

Google designed predictive back for gesture navigation, which is the intended method of navigation on Android. For accessibility reasons, however, Android still supports the old three-button navigation method that’s been around for more than a decade. Many users prefer three-button navigation for its speed and simplicity, so it’s still quite popular.

Because of this, Google is looking to bring predictive back support to three-button navigation in Android 16. With some tinkering in the second developer preview of Android 16, I managed to activate an early preview of this new behavior. As you can see in the video embedded below, when I press and hold the back button, I’m able to see what page I’ll land on next when I let go of the button. This even works in apps that support predictive back, such as Google Calendar. However, I’m currently unable to see a preview of the home screen when going back. I think this is happening because it’s either just a bug or unfinished work, though. The back-to-home animation will likely work once predictive back support formally rolls out for three-button navigation users.

I don’t know when Google will bring predictive back support to the three-button navigation method, but I’d be surprised if it doesn’t make it into Android 16. Android 16 is expected in the second quarter of this year, but this new behavior may appear before the stable release. It could very well go live in the first beta of Android 16, for example, which is scheduled for later this month.

Predictive back support isn’t the only upgrade coming to three-button navigation in Android 16. Google is also developing a new corner swipe gesture that lets you invoke the default assistant when using three-button navigation. Additional changes to three-button navigation would be nice to have, including the highly requested ability to swap the order of back and recent buttons.