This question is linked with the answers in the following question: Error removing Bitmaps[Android] Is there any advantage of using Drawable over Bitmap in Android in terms of memory de-allocation ? I was looking at Romain Guy project Shelves and he uses SoftReference for images caches but I'm unable to search where is the code which is de-allocating these Drawables when SoftReference automatically reclaims the memory for Bitmap. As far as I know .recycle() has to be explicitly called on the Bitmap for it to be de-allocated.