How to set the Default Value of a ListPreference

You don’t need to programmatically handle the default value of ListPreferences. You can do this in xml setting file. Below is an example

<string-array name="opts">
    <item>red</item>
    <item>green</item>
    <item>blue</item>
</string-array>

<string-array name="opts_values">
    <item>1</item>
    <item>2</item>
    <item>3</item>
</string-array>

…

<ListPreference
    android:title="Colour select"
    android:summary="Select your favourite"
    android:key="colour"
    android:entries="@array/opts"
    android:entryValues="@array/opts_values"
    android:defaultValue="2" />

here I selected 2 as a default value. Remember defaultvalue will be opts_values element.