How to implement endless list with RecyclerView?

For those who only want to get notified when the last item is totally shown, you can use View.canScrollVertically().

Here is my implementation:

public abstract class OnVerticalScrollListener
        extends RecyclerView.OnScrollListener {

    @Override
    public final void onScrolled(RecyclerView recyclerView, int dx, int dy) {
        if (!recyclerView.canScrollVertically(-1)) {
            onScrolledToTop();
        } else if (!recyclerView.canScrollVertically(1)) {
            onScrolledToBottom();
        } else if (dy < 0) {
            onScrolledUp();
        } else if (dy > 0) {
            onScrolledDown();
        }
    }

    public void onScrolledUp() {}

    public void onScrolledDown() {}

    public void onScrolledToTop() {}

    public void onScrolledToBottom() {}
}

Note: You can use recyclerView.getLayoutManager().canScrollVertically() if you want to support API < 14.

Thanks to @Kushal and this is how I implemented it

private boolean loading = true;
int pastVisiblesItems, visibleItemCount, totalItemCount;

mRecyclerView.addOnScrollListener(new RecyclerView.OnScrollListener() {
    @Override
    public void onScrolled(RecyclerView recyclerView, int dx, int dy) {
        if (dy > 0) { //check for scroll down
            visibleItemCount = mLayoutManager.getChildCount();
            totalItemCount = mLayoutManager.getItemCount();
            pastVisiblesItems = mLayoutManager.findFirstVisibleItemPosition();

            if (loading) {
                if ((visibleItemCount + pastVisiblesItems) >= totalItemCount) {
                    loading = false;
                    Log.v("...", "Last Item Wow !");
                    // Do pagination.. i.e. fetch new data

                    loading = true;
                }
            }
        }
    }
});

Don't forget to add

LinearLayoutManager mLayoutManager;
mLayoutManager = new LinearLayoutManager(this);
mRecyclerView.setLayoutManager(mLayoutManager);

Make these variables.

private int previousTotal = 0;
private boolean loading = true;
private int visibleThreshold = 5;
int firstVisibleItem, visibleItemCount, totalItemCount;

Set on Scroll for recycler view.

mRecyclerView.addOnScrollListener(new RecyclerView.OnScrollListener() {

    @Override
    public void onScrolled(RecyclerView recyclerView, int dx, int dy) {
        super.onScrolled(recyclerView, dx, dy);

        visibleItemCount = mRecyclerView.getChildCount();
        totalItemCount = mLayoutManager.getItemCount();
        firstVisibleItem = mLayoutManager.findFirstVisibleItemPosition();

        if (loading) {
            if (totalItemCount > previousTotal) {
                loading = false;
                previousTotal = totalItemCount;
            }
        }
        if (!loading && (totalItemCount - visibleItemCount) 
            <= (firstVisibleItem + visibleThreshold)) {
            // End has been reached

            Log.i("Yaeye!", "end called");

            // Do something

            loading = true;
        }
    }
});

Note : Make sure you are using LinearLayoutManager as layout manager for RecyclerView.

LinearLayoutManager mLayoutManager;
mLayoutManager = new LinearLayoutManager(this);
mRecyclerView.setLayoutManager(mLayoutManager);

and for a grid

GridLayoutManager mLayoutManager;
mLayoutManager = new GridLayoutManager(getActivity(), spanCount);
mRecyclerView.setLayoutManager(mLayoutManager);

Have fun with your endless scrolls !! ^.^

Update : mRecyclerView.setOnScrollListener() is deprecated just replace with mRecyclerView.addOnScrollListener() and the warning will be gone! You can read more from this SO question.

Since Android now officially support Kotlin, here is an update for the same -

Make OnScrollListener

class OnScrollListener(val layoutManager: LinearLayoutManager, val adapter: RecyclerView.Adapter<RecyclerAdapter.ViewHolder>, val dataList: MutableList<Int>) : RecyclerView.OnScrollListener() {
    var previousTotal = 0
    var loading = true
    val visibleThreshold = 10
    var firstVisibleItem = 0
    var visibleItemCount = 0
    var totalItemCount = 0

    override fun onScrolled(recyclerView: RecyclerView, dx: Int, dy: Int) {
        super.onScrolled(recyclerView, dx, dy)

        visibleItemCount = recyclerView.childCount
        totalItemCount = layoutManager.itemCount
        firstVisibleItem = layoutManager.findFirstVisibleItemPosition()

        if (loading) {
            if (totalItemCount > previousTotal) {
                loading = false
                previousTotal = totalItemCount
            }
        }

        if (!loading && (totalItemCount - visibleItemCount) <= (firstVisibleItem + visibleThreshold)) {
            val initialSize = dataList.size
            updateDataList(dataList)
            val updatedSize = dataList.size
            recyclerView.post { adapter.notifyItemRangeInserted(initialSize, updatedSize) }
            loading = true
        }
    }
}

and add it to your RecyclerView like this

recyclerView.addOnScrollListener(OnScrollListener(layoutManager, adapter, dataList))

For a full code example, feel free to refer this Github repo.