What is the size of ActionBar in pixels?

I need to know the exact size of ActionBar in pixels so to apply correct background image.

To retrieve the height of the ActionBar in XML, just use

?android:attr/actionBarSize

or if you're an ActionBarSherlock or AppCompat user, use this

?attr/actionBarSize

If you need this value at runtime, use this

final TypedArray styledAttributes = getContext().getTheme().obtainStyledAttributes(
					new int[] { android.R.attr.actionBarSize });
mActionBarSize = (int) styledAttributes.getDimension(0, 0);
styledAttributes.recycle();

If you need to understand where this is defined:

1. The attribute name itself is defined in the platform's /res/values/attrs.xml
2. The platform's themes.xml picks this attribute and assigns a value to it.
3. The value assigned in step 2 depends on different device sizes, which are defined in various dimens.xml files in the platform, ie. core/res/res/values-sw600dp/dimens.xml

From the de-compiled sources of Android 3.2's framework-res.apk, res/values/styles.xml contains:

<style name="Theme.Holo">
    <!-- ... -->
    <item name="actionBarSize">56.0dip</item>
    <!-- ... -->
</style>

3.0 and 3.1 seem to be the same (at least from AOSP)...

To get the actual height of the Actionbar, you have to resolve the attribute actionBarSize at runtime.

TypedValue tv = new TypedValue();
context.getTheme().resolveAttribute(android.R.attr.actionBarSize, tv, true);
int actionBarHeight = getResources().getDimensionPixelSize(tv.resourceId);

One of the Honeycomb samples refers to ?android:attr/actionBarSize

I needed to do replicate these heights properly in a pre-ICS compatibility app and dug into the framework core source. Both answers above are sort of correct.

It basically boils down to using qualifiers. The height is defined by the dimension "action_bar_default_height"

It is defined to 48dip for default. But for -land it is 40dip and for sw600dp it is 56dip.

If you're using the compatibility ActionBar from the recent v7 appcompat support package, you can get the height using

@dimen/abc_action_bar_default_height

Documentation

With the new v7 support library (21.0.0) the name in R.dimen has changed to @dimen/abc_action_bar_default_height_material.

When upgrading from a previous version of the support lib you should therefore use that value as the actionbar's height

If you are using ActionBarSherlock, you can get the height with

@dimen/abs__action_bar_default_height

@AZ13's answer is good, but as per the Android design guidelines, the ActionBar should be at least 48dp high.

public int getActionBarHeight() {
    int actionBarHeight = 0;
    TypedValue tv = new TypedValue();
    if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.HONEYCOMB) {
        if (getTheme().resolveAttribute(android.R.attr.actionBarSize, tv,
                true))
            actionBarHeight = TypedValue.complexToDimensionPixelSize(
                    tv.data, getResources().getDisplayMetrics());
    } else {
        actionBarHeight = TypedValue.complexToDimensionPixelSize(tv.data,
                getResources().getDisplayMetrics());
    }
    return actionBarHeight;
}

Accepted answer in Kotlin :

val Context.actionBarSize
    get() = theme.obtainStyledAttributes(intArrayOf(android.R.attr.actionBarSize))
        .let { attrs -> attrs.getDimension(0, 0F).toInt().also { attrs.recycle() } }

Usage :

val size = actionBarSize					// Inside Activity
val size = requireContext().actionBarSize	// Inside Fragment
val size = anyView.context.actionBarSize	// Inside RecyclerView ViewHolder

The http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/ActionBar.html">Class Summary is usually a good place to start. I think the getHeight() method should suffice.

EDIT:

If you need the width, it should be the width of the screen (right?) and that can be gathered https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1016896/android-how-to-get-screen-dimensions">like this.

On my Galaxy S4 having > 441dpi > 1080 x 1920 > Getting Actionbar height with getResources().getDimensionPixelSize I got 144 pixels.

Using formula px = dp x (dpi/160), I was using 441dpi, whereas my device lies
in the category 480dpi. so putting that confirms the result.

I did in this way for myself, this helper method should come in handy for someone:

private static final int[] RES_IDS_ACTION_BAR_SIZE = {R.attr.actionBarSize};

/**
 * Calculates the Action Bar height in pixels.
 */
public static int calculateActionBarSize(Context context) {
    if (context == null) {
        return 0;
    }

    Resources.Theme curTheme = context.getTheme();
    if (curTheme == null) {
        return 0;
    }

    TypedArray att = curTheme.obtainStyledAttributes(RES_IDS_ACTION_BAR_SIZE);
    if (att == null) {
        return 0;
    }

    float size = att.getDimension(0, 0);
    att.recycle();
    return (int) size;
}