How to Set Shadow to a View in Android

Android View shadow

I know this question has already been answered but I want you to know that I found a drawable on Android Studio that is very similar to the pics you have in the question:
Take a look at this:

android:background="@drawable/abc_menu_dropdown_panel_holo_light"

It looks like this:

Sample Image

Hope it will be helpful

Edit

The option above is for the older versions of Android Studio so you may not find it. For newer versions:

android:background="@android:drawable/dialog_holo_light_frame"

Moreover, if you want to have your own custom shape, I suggest to use a drawing software like Photoshop and draw it.

Sample Image

Don't forget to save it as .9.png file (example: my_background.9.png)

Read the documentation: Draw 9-patch

Edit 2

An even better and less hard working solution is to use a CardView and set app:cardPreventCornerOverlap="false" to prevent views to overlap the borders:

<android.support.v7.widget.CardView
    android:id="@+id/card_view"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    app:cardCornerRadius="2dp"
    app:cardElevation="2dp"
    app:cardPreventCornerOverlap="false"
    app:contentPadding="0dp">

    <!-- your layout stuff here -->

</android.support.v7.widget.CardView>

Also make sure to have included the latest version in the build.gradle, current is

compile 'com.android.support:cardview-v7:26.0.0'

How to add a shadow above a view in android

Here are some solutions for this problem - choose your best:

On StackOverflow, in this post from 22 October 2012, you would read:

There is no such attribute in Android, to show a shadow. But possible ways to do it are:

Add a plain LinearLayout with grey color, over which add your actual layout, with margin at the bottom and right equal to 1 or 2 dp.

Have a 9-patch image with a shadow and set it as the background to your Linear layout.

and

There is also another solution to the problem by implementing a layer-list that will act as the background for the LinearLayoout.

Add background_with_shadow.xml file to res/drawable. Containing:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<layer-list xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item >
        <shape 
            android:shape="rectangle">
        <solid android:color="@android:color/darker_gray" />
        <corners android:radius="5dp"/>
        </shape>
    </item>
    <item android:right="1dp" android:left="1dp" android:bottom="2dp">
        <shape 
            android:shape="rectangle">
        <solid android:color="@android:color/white"/>
        <corners android:radius="5dp"/>
        </shape>
    </item>
</layer-list>

Then add the layer-list as background in your LinearLayout.

<LinearLayout
  android:layout_width="wrap_content"
  android:layout_height="wrap_content"
  android:background="@drawable/background_with_shadow"/>

You can also read: http://odedhb.blogspot.com/2013/05/android-layout-shadow-without-9-patch.html

Another post from StackOverflow, how to set shadow to a View in android?, gives you another solution (using two views that form the shadow.):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<FrameLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent" 
    android:padding="10dp"
    android:background="#CC55CC">
    <LinearLayout
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:orientation="vertical">
        <TableLayout
            android:layout_width="fill_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:stretchColumns="0">
            <TableRow>
                <LinearLayout
                    android:id="@+id/content"
                    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
                    android:layout_height="wrap_content">
                    <TextView  
                        android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
                        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                        android:background="#FFFFFF" 
                        android:text="@string/hello" />
                </LinearLayout>
                <View
                    android:layout_width="5dp"
                    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
                    android:layout_marginTop="5dp"
                    android:background="#55000000"/>
            </TableRow>
        </TableLayout>
        <View
            android:layout_width="fill_parent"
            android:layout_height="5dp"
            android:layout_marginLeft="5dp"
            android:background="#55000000"/>
    </LinearLayout>
</FrameLayout>

You can also use specific drawable form Android resources to mimic a shadow effect. Look at: Android View shadow or just read a post below:

I'm using Android Studio 0.8.6 and I couldn't find:
android:background="@drawable/abc_menu_dropdown_panel_holo_light"
so I found this instead:
android:background="@android:drawable/dialog_holo_light_frame"
and it looks like this:

picture of a smartphone running Android, with the code example running

If you're interested in clean Material Design effect, read some documentation like below:

Android L Developer Preview: Views and
Shadows
Defining Shadows and Clipping
Views

How can we set shadow effect for View in Android?

You can create your own "shadow view"

<View
android:id="@+id/shadow_view"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="4dp"
android:layout_gravity="bottom"
android:background="@drawable/shadow_gradient" />

and add the shadow drawable to it:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<shape xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <gradient
        android:angle="90"
        android:endColor="@android:color/transparent"
        android:startColor="#8f000000" />
</shape>

The height is up to you, to experiment and see what works best for you as is the angle and start colour of the drawable. You just need to align this view layout to any view layout you want to have a shadow and you are good.

how to set shadow to a View in android?

There are a simple trick, using two views that form the shadow.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<FrameLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent" 
    android:padding="10dp"
    android:background="#CC55CC">
    <LinearLayout
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:orientation="vertical">
        <TableLayout
            android:layout_width="fill_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:stretchColumns="0">
            <TableRow>
                <LinearLayout
                    android:id="@+id/content"
                    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
                    android:layout_height="wrap_content">
                    <TextView  
                        android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
                        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                        android:background="#FFFFFF" 
                        android:text="@string/hello" />
                </LinearLayout>
                <View
                    android:layout_width="5dp"
                    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
                    android:layout_marginTop="5dp"
                    android:background="#55000000"/>
            </TableRow>
        </TableLayout>
        <View
            android:layout_width="fill_parent"
            android:layout_height="5dp"
            android:layout_marginLeft="5dp"
            android:background="#55000000"/>
    </LinearLayout>
</FrameLayout>

Hope this help.

android add shadow below view

Use

getSupportActionBar().setElevation(10);

But as per Your Above Comment in my app i made an LinearLayout as ActionBar did this will work

Than Use

YourView.setElevation(10);

How to add shadow on CardView aligned to bottom of parent

Well margin don't help much, so I put padding on main container and remove all those shadow properties because the android:elevation="" is what is doing the job.

Here is some clear code, that is working for this need:

<RelativeLayout
   xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
        xmlns:card_view="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
        android:clipToPadding="false"
        android:clipChildren="false"
        android:orientation="vertical"
        android:padding="20dp"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent">

  <!--rest of the code-->

  <LinearLayout
         android:layout_width="match_parent"
         android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
         android:clipToPadding="false"
       android:clipChildren="false"
         android:layout_height="wrap_content">
    <android.support.v7.widget.CardView
         android:layout_width="match_parent"
         android:layout_height="wrap_content"
         android:elevation="8dp"
         android:divider="@android:color/transparent"
         android:dividerHeight="0.0px"
         android:clipToPadding="false"
         android:clipChildren="false"
         card_view:cardElevation="10dp"
         card_view:cardPreventCornerOverlap="false">

      <TextView
          android:layout_width="match_parent"
          android:padding="20dp"
          android:layout_height="wrap_content"
          android:text="Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed
          do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim 
          veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo
          consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse
          cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident,
          sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum"
        />   
    </android.support.v7.widget.CardView>
  </LinearLayout>

</RelativeLayout>

And an image on how this looks:
Sample Image

How to show shadow around the linearlayout in Android?

There is no such attribute in Android, to show a shadow. But possible ways to do it are:

Add a plain LinearLayout with grey color, over which add your actual layout, with margin at bottom and right equal to 1 or 2 dp
Have a 9-patch image with a shadow and set it as the background to your Linear layout

Add shadow to bottom of view

Try using below line in the linearlayout under which your cardview is sitting.

android:elevation="8dp"

Let the cardElevation part in your cardView be as it is.

card_view:cardElevation="10dp"
card_view:cardPreventCornerOverlap="false"

Also just a suggestion :

If you're using android:layout_weight in both child linearLayout put android:weightSum="2" in your parent linearLayout as mentioned in answer given by @Ming Leung here

For more information on android:weightSum="2" you can refer to answers on this page

This page would help you for elevation in cardview

Hope that helps.

Android elevation not showing a shadow

I've been playing around with shadows on Lollipop for a bit and this is what I've found:

It appears that a parent ViewGroup's bounds cutoff the shadow of its children for some reason; and
shadows set with android:elevation are cutoff by the View's bounds, not the bounds extended through the margin;
the right way to get a child view to show shadow is to set padding on the parent and set android:clipToPadding="false" on that parent.

Here's my suggestion to you based on what I know:

Set your top-level RelativeLayout to have padding equal to the margins you've set on the relative layout that you want to show shadow;
set android:clipToPadding="false" on the same RelativeLayout;
Remove the margin from the RelativeLayout that also has elevation set;
[EDIT] you may also need to set a non-transparent background color on the child layout that needs elevation.

At the end of the day, your top-level relative layout should look like this:

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    style="@style/block"
    android:gravity="center"
    android:layout_gravity="center"
    android:background="@color/lightgray"
    android:paddingLeft="40dp"
    android:paddingRight="40dp"
    android:paddingTop="20dp"
    android:paddingBottom="20dp"
    android:clipToPadding="false"
    >

The interior relative layout should look like this:

<RelativeLayout
    android:layout_width="300dp"
    android:layout_height="300dp"
    android:background="[some non-transparent color]"
    android:elevation="30dp"
    >