Disable WKWebView for opening links to redirect to apps installed on my iPhone

Question

When I'm searching google and click on Etsy.com for exmaple, WKWebView redirect me to Etsy app installed on my iPhone. How can I disable this behavior? I want WKWebView to redirect me to etsy.com mobile website. I'm using swift.

Solution

Unfortunately, WKWebView doesn’t send urls with custom schemes back to your app to handle automatically.

If you try this without special handling, it will look like your web view hangs after the user authenticates with the third-party service and you’ll never receive your callback. You could try using a redirect URI with the standard http or https scheme, but then WKWebView would just try to load it, rather than directing it out of the web view to your native app to handle.

In order to handle the redirect, you need to implement decidePolicyForNavigationAction in the WebPolicyDelegate of your WKWebView to detect the custom URL scheme and direct it to your app to be handled:

func webView(webView: WKWebView, decidePolicyForNavigationAction navigationAction: WKNavigationAction, decisionHandler: ((WKNavigationActionPolicy) -> Void)) {
        print("webView:\(webView) decidePolicyForNavigationAction:\(navigationAction) decisionHandler:\(decisionHandler)")

        let app = UIApplication.sharedApplication()
        let url = navigationAction.request.URL
        let myScheme: NSString = "https"
        if (url!.scheme == myScheme) && app.canOpenURL(url!) {
            print("redirect detected..")
            // intercepting redirect, do whatever you want
            app.openURL(url!) // open the original url
            decisionHandler(.Cancel)
            return
        }

        decisionHandler(.Allow)
    }

You can find detailed information here

Comments

[saagarjha]

Sure. If you implement WKNavigationDelegate, the method webView(_ webView: WKWebView, decidePolicyForNavigationAction navigationAction: WKNavigationAction, decisionHandler decisionHandler: (WKNavigationActionPolicy) -> Void) should be called whenever a link is clicked. Check the navigationAction.request.URL property to make sure it's not Etsy, for example; if it is, cancel the navigation using the decisionHandler and go to the website yourself using loadRequest(). Hopefully this will prevent Deep Linking.

[Borzh]

This doesn't work on iOS 9-10... When I click on custom scheme url, decidePolicyForNavigationAction is never called.

[iphondroid]

@Borzh did you find a solution for iOS 10 ?

[Borzh]

No I didn't... I remember the web team somehow fixed the bug, but don't know how, really.

[Mrug]

This is because of Universal App Links using the Apple app site association file. Refer developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/General/…

[exp]

This is part of WKNavigationDelegate now