How to copy a java.util.List into another java.util.List
Just use this: List<SomeBean> newList = new ArrayList<SomeBean>(otherList); Note: still not thread safe, if you modify otherList from another thread, then you may want to make that otherList (and even newList) a CopyOnWriteArrayList, for instance — or use a lock primitive, such as ReentrantReadWriteLock to serialize read/write access to whatever lists are concurrently accessed.