Is automatic cleanup of hard links possible in a situation of insufficient RAM?

In Android (and in Java in general), a strong reference cannot be automatically cleared by the system when there is a shortage of memory. Objects with strong references are considered alive and are not eligible for garbage collection as long as such references exist.

To manage memory shortages, weak (WeakReference), soft (SoftReference), and phantom (PhantomReference) references are used, which allow the garbage collector to free memory when necessary. For example, SoftReference objects can be cleared when memory is low, which is useful for caching.

Therefore, automatic clearing of strong references is impossible — you need to explicitly release the references or use other types of references.