When you createa a PreferenceScreen on Android, your application creates a default SharedPreferences file for the settings. I want to read this name, or get a reference without specifing the name. Currently I use: SharedPreferences prefs = ctx.getSharedPreferences("prefs", 0); SharedPreferences.Editor ed=prefs.edit(); But this returns another copy of the preference. When I checked the folder in /data/data/myapk/shared_prefs I see two files, one named prefs.xml and the other is my [package name]_preferences.xml (this was created by the PreferenceActivity); How do I get an instance of the shared preference with the usage of the default file name, so I should not mention a name for it?