Android App link - Open a url from app in browser without triggering App Link

Question

I have enabled App linking in my application. It works fine. But in my application there are some scenarios where i cannot handle the incoming url. In those cases i want to redirect that url to the default browser in the device.

Currently what i have tried doing is using intents to open browser with the url, but it again redirects to my app itself. The app link is of the format ->

https://<domain>/<prefix>/<params>

so depending on the params, i would like to either handle the app link in the app itself or redirect it to the default browser. Below is the code i tried to open the browser with the above url

val browserIntent = Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, Uri.parse(appLinkModel.url))
browserIntent.addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_APP_BROWSER)
browserIntent.resolveActivity(packageManager)?.let {
    startActivity(browserIntent)
}

I tried excluding the addCategory() line but the results are the same. Either the app crashes(hence the resolveActivity()), or app opens itself in a loop.

WHAT I WANT TO DO

So what i want to do is redirect the url to the default browser(or show a chooser WITHOUT my app in it), without triggering the app link again and again. So is this possible?

Answer 1

String data = "example.com/your_url?param=some_param";
Intent defaultBrowser = Intent.makeMainSelectorActivity(Intent.ACTION_MAIN, Intent.CATEGORY_APP_BROWSER);
defaultBrowser.setData(data);
startActivity(defaultBrowser);

this technique (using makeMainSelectorActivity) will force the link to open in the device's default browser

Note - makeMainSelectorActivity only works for API level 15 and above.

If you need to support API levels lower than 15, you could try this hack

Answer 2

In Kotlin, try using makeMainSelectorActivity :

val defaultBrowser = Intent.makeMainSelectorActivity(Intent.ACTION_MAIN, Intent.CATEGORY_APP_BROWSER)
defaultBrowser.data = Uri.parse("https://yoururl.com/")
startActivity(defaultBrowser)