UIWebView open links in Safari

Question

I have a very simple UIWebView with content from my application bundle  I would like any links in the web view to open in Safari instead of in the web view  Is this possible

User · Answer

In Swift you can use the following code   extension YourViewController  UIWebViewDelegate       func webView   webView  UIWebView  shouldStartLoadWith request  URLRequest  navigationType  UIWebView NavigationType  - gt  Bool           if let url   request url  navigationType    UIWebView NavigationType linkClicked               UIApplication shared open url  options       completionHandler  nil              return false                   return true            Make sure you check for the URL value and the navigationType

User · Answer

The other answers have one problem  they rely on the action you do and not on the link itself to decide whether to load it in Safari or in webview    Now sometimes this is exactly what you want  which is fine  but some other times  especially if you have anchor links in your page  you want really to open only external links in Safari  and not internal ones  In that case you should check the URL host property of your request    I use that piece of code to check whether I have a hostname in the URL that is being parsed  or if it is embedded html    -  BOOL webView  UIWebView   webView shouldStartLoadWithRequest  NSURLRequest   request navigationType  UIWebViewNavigationType navigationType       static NSString  regexp         a-zA-Z   a-zA-Z  a-zA-Z0-9-   a-zA-Z0-9         A-Za-z   A-Za-z  A-Za-z0-9-   A-Za-z0-9          NSPredicate  predicate    NSPredicate predicateWithFormat   SELF MATCHES      regexp        if   predicate evaluateWithObject request URL host               UIApplication sharedApplication  openURL request URL           return NO         else           return YES             You can of course adapt the regular expression to fit your needs

User · Answer

Add this to the UIWebView delegate    edited to check for navigation type  you could also pass through file    requests which would be relative links   -  BOOL webView  UIWebView   webView shouldStartLoadWithRequest  NSURLRequest   request navigationType  UIWebViewNavigationType navigationType       if  navigationType    UIWebViewNavigationTypeLinkClicked               UIApplication sharedApplication  openURL  request URL            return NO             return YES      Swift Version   func webView webView  UIWebView  shouldStartLoadWithRequest request  NSURLRequest  navigationType  UIWebViewNavigationType  - gt  Bool           if navigationType    UIWebViewNavigationType LinkClicked               UIApplication sharedApplication   openURL request URL               return false                   return true         Swift 3 version   func webView   webView  UIWebView  shouldStartLoadWith request  URLRequest  navigationType  UIWebViewNavigationType  - gt  Bool       if navigationType    UIWebViewNavigationType linkClicked           UIApplication shared openURL request url           return false           return true     Swift 4 version   func webView   webView  UIWebView  shouldStartLoadWith request  URLRequest  navigationType  UIWebView NavigationType  - gt  Bool       guard let url   request url  navigationType     linkClicked else   return true       UIApplication shared open url  options       completionHandler  nil      return false     Update  As openURL has been deprecated in iOS 10   -  BOOL webView  UIWebView   webView shouldStartLoadWithRequest  NSURLRequest   request navigationType  UIWebViewNavigationType navigationType           if  navigationType    UIWebViewNavigationTypeLinkClicked                 UIApplication  application    UIApplication sharedApplication                application openURL  request URL  options     completionHandler nil               return NO                     return YES

User · Answer

Here s the Xamarin iOS equivalent of drawnonward s answer   class WebviewDelegate   UIWebViewDelegate       public override bool ShouldStartLoad  UIWebView webView  NSUrlRequest request  UIWebViewNavigationType navigationType            if  navigationType    UIWebViewNavigationType LinkClicked                UIApplication SharedApplication OpenUrl  request Url               return false                    return true

User · Answer

If anyone wonders  Drawnonward s solution would look like this in Swift   func webView webView  UIWebView   shouldStartLoadWithRequest request  NSURLRequest   navigationType  UIWebViewNavigationType  - gt  Bool       if navigationType    UIWebViewNavigationType LinkClicked           UIApplication sharedApplication   openURL request URL          return false           return true

User · Answer

UIWebView and UIWebViewDelegate are deprecated  You won t be allowed to push an update to the Appstore with it  Reference Use WKWebView and WKNavigationDelegate Sample code  class YourClass  WKNavigationDelegate        override public func viewDidLoad             super viewDidLoad           let webView   WKWebView           webView navigationDelegate   self         self view addaddSubview webView                 public func webView   webView  WKWebView                      didReceive challenge  URLAuthenticationChallenge                      completionHandler   escaping  URLSession AuthChallengeDisposition  URLCredential   - gt  Void            let cred   URLCredential trust  challenge protectionSpace serverTrust           completionHandler  useCredential  cred             public func webView   webView  WKWebView                      decidePolicyFor navigationAction  WKNavigationAction                      decisionHandler   escaping  WKNavigationActionPolicy  - gt  Swift Void                 self webView load navigationAction request          decisionHandler  allow

User · Answer

One quick comment to user306253 s answer  caution with this  when you try to load something in the UIWebView yourself  i e  even from the code   this method will prevent it to happened   What you can do to prevent this  thanks Wade  is   if  inType    UIWebViewNavigationTypeLinkClicked          UIApplication sharedApplication  openURL  inRequest URL        return NO     return YES    You might also want to handle the UIWebViewNavigationTypeFormSubmitted and UIWebViewNavigationTypeFormResubmitted types

User · Answer

In my case I want to make sure that absolutely everything in the web view opens Safari except the initial load and so I use     -  BOOL webView  UIWebView   inWeb shouldStartLoadWithRequest  NSURLRequest   inRequest navigationType  UIWebViewNavigationType inType        if inType    UIWebViewNavigationTypeOther              UIApplication sharedApplication  openURL  inRequest URL            return NO              return YES

User · Answer

The accepted answer does not work    If your page loads URLs via Javascript  the navigationType will be UIWebViewNavigationTypeOther  Which  unfortunately  also includes background page loads such as analytics   To detect page navigation  you need to compare the  request URL  to the  request mainDocumentURL    This solution will work in all cases   -  BOOL webView  UIWebView   view shouldStartLoadWithRequest  NSURLRequest   request navigationType  UIWebViewNavigationType type       if    request URL  isEqual  request mainDocumentURL                    UIApplication sharedApplication  openURL  request URL            return NO            else                      return YES

User · Answer

App rejection Note    Finally UIWbView is dead and Apple will not longer accept it   Apple started sending email to all the App owner who are still using UIWebView   Deprecated API Usage - Apple will stop accepting submissions of apps that use UIWebView APIs   Apple takes User Privacy very seriously and it is obvious that they won   t allow insecure webview   So do remove UIWebView from your app as soon as possible  don t use try to use UIWebView in new created app and I  Prefer to using WKWebView if possible      ITMS-90809  Deprecated API Usage - Apple will stop accepting   submissions of apps that use UIWebView APIs   See   https   developer apple com documentation uikit uiwebview for more   information    Example   import UIKit import WebKit  class WebInfoController  UIViewController WKNavigationDelegate        var webView   WKWebView             var webview   WKWebView           return webview              var  fileName   String       override func viewDidLoad             self view addSubview webView          webView fillSuperview           let url   Bundle main url forResource   fileName  withExtension   html            webView loadFileURL url  allowingReadAccessTo  url          let request   URLRequest url  url          webView load request              func webView webView  WKWebView  didFailProvisionalNavigation navigation  WKNavigation   withError error  NSError            print error localizedDescription            func webView webView  WKWebView  didStartProvisionalNavigation navigation  WKNavigation             print  Strat to load             func webView webView  WKWebView  didFinishNavigation navigation  WKNavigation             print  finish to load

[ios] UIWebView open links in Safari

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