listview focusedItem always Null after direct assignment Thanks for your reply! The problem goes away if I use listView1 SelectedItems Item (0) EnsureVisible () It turned out that I didn't have focus on the listview that I was looking at, the focus is always set on the other listview which was also the ActiveControl of the form If I want to use and access the focuseditem property (retrieving the name of focused listviewitem), I will need to set