Expand and give focus to SearchView automatically

To make the SearchView expanded by default, call setIconifiedByDefault(false) on it when you initialise it (e.g. in onCreateOptionsMenu(..) or onPrepareOptionsMenu(..)). I've found in most cases this will give it focus automatically, but if not simply call requestFocus() on it too.

You can also call to expandActionView() method in order to force it:

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu( Menu menu )
{
super.onCreateOptionsMenu( menu );


MenuItem searchMenuItem = menu.findItem( R.id.mi_search ); // get my MenuItem with placeholder submenu
searchMenuItem.expandActionView(); // Expand the search menu item in order to show by default the query


return true;
}

Search item in the Action Bar layout:

<item
android:id="@+id/mi_search"
android:icon="@drawable/abs__ic_search_api_holo_light"
android:title="@string/search"
android:showAsAction="ifRoom|collapseActionView"
android:actionViewClass="com.actionbarsherlock.widget.SearchView"
/>

This worked for me:

menu.expandActionView();

If you're using it in layout, you can call

mSearchView.onActionViewExpanded()

This worked for me :

In the root layout :

xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"

SearchView defined as follows :

 <android.support.v7.widget.SearchView
android:id="@+id/search_contacts"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal"
android:layout_margin="15dp"
android:background="@drawable/search_view"
app:iconifiedByDefault="false"
app:queryHint="Search name or email"
>


<requestFocus />
</android.support.v7.widget.SearchView>

The difference is with app tag.

app:iconifiedByDefault="false"
app:queryHint="Search name or email"

If you want to have it iconifiedByDefault, this worked for me. setFocusable and setIconified are needed.

    SearchView searchView = (SearchView) menu.findItem(R.id.action_search).getActionView();
searchView.setIconifiedByDefault(true);
searchView.setFocusable(true);
searchView.setIconified(false);
searchView.requestFocusFromTouch();

Update: If you are Using android.support.v7.widget.SearchView the behaviour us very different. clearFocus is needed if you don't want the keyboard pop-up all the time. For some reason the menu is recreated all the time, when using appcompat.

SearchView searchView = (SearchView) menu.findItem(R.id.action_search).getActionView();
searchView.setIconified(false);
searchView.clearFocus();

You can use the SearchView#setIconified() method on a SearchView handle in your Java code. More here:

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/SearchView.html#setIconified(boolean)

You can also make use of SearchView#setIconifiedByDefault(). More info here:

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/SearchView.html#setIconifiedByDefault(boolean)

MenuItemCompat's SearchView has a property named maxWidth.

final MenuItem searchItem = menu.findItem(R.id.action_search);
final SearchView searchView = (SearchView) MenuItemCompat.getActionView(searchItem);
searchView.setMaxWidth(xxx);

use screen width instead of xxx offcourse

If you are using inside an activity you need to use

view.onActionViewExpanded();

if you are using inside menu options you need to use

MenuItem.expandActionView();

Note: it works only for SearchView

these two situations are worked for me.

android:iconifiedByDefault="true"

Above is the code in XML helped me make it expand and autofocus on search view when clicked:

use this

SearchManager searchManager = (SearchManager) mActivity.getSystemService(Context.SEARCH_SERVICE);
SearchView searchView = new SearchView(mActivity.actionBar.getThemedContext());
searchView.setSearchableInfo(searchManager.getSearchableInfo(mActivity.getComponentName()));
searchView.setIconifiedByDefault(false);
searchView.setQueryHint("Search");
menu.findItem(R.id.action_search).setActionView(searchView);

I am using android.widget Searchview and iconified by default.Below code in xml helped me make it expand and autofocus on search view,when clicked:

<SearchView
android:id="@+id/searchView"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:iconifiedByDefault="true"
android:focusable="true"
android:focusableInTouchMode="true"
android:queryHint="Search"/>

@Pascalius's answer worked for me. But every time you close the SearchView, and click again, you lost the Focus. So I inserted the code in a setOnMenuItemClickListener like this:

MenuItem item = menu.findItem(R.id.action_search);


SearchManager searchManager = (SearchManager) getSystemService(Context.SEARCH_SERVICE);
final SearchView searchView = (SearchView) item.getActionView();


item.setOnMenuItemClickListener(new MenuItem.OnMenuItemClickListener() {
@Override
public boolean onMenuItemClick(MenuItem menuItem) {
searchView.setIconifiedByDefault(true);
searchView.setFocusable(true);
searchView.setIconified(false);
searchView.requestFocusFromTouch();


return false;
}
});

For Appcompat Searchview you can use this method:

MenuItemCompat.expandActionView(mSearchMenuItem);

Call expandActionView() on the menuItem.

menuItem.expandActionView()

I was having a hard time doing this with SearchView widget, but the expandActionView() method is actually defined in the MenuItem class, not SearchView class. So, I solved it by

        MenuItem searchItem = menu.findItem(R.id.item_search);
SearchView   searchView = (SearchView) searchItem.getActionView();
searchItem.expandActionView();//the method expandActionView is called on searchItem not searchView

Kotlin

var searchView = menu.findItem(R.id.action_search).actionView as SearchView
searchView.isIconified = true