Open app when tapping website URL from email

Question

When my users receive an email from us, I want them to be able to tap the link in that email and open our app.

This is NOT a custom URL scheme, but just a link to our website. So, if the user tapped the link www.mysite.com?data=123, how can I make iOS know that my app handles all www.mysite.com URLs in my app instead of opening Safari?

Answer 1

You can definitely do this, as of iOS 9.

Universal Links are what you want to setup. Please note that you must own the site or have administrator access for this to work. Apple documentation.

For completeness, you can also do the same on Android, as of 6.0. The term in Android world is App Links. App link tutorial.

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Minor note on implementing this. From experience, the link may not work through every email client or iOS app. E.g. opening the link in an email client other than Mail may or may not open your app correctly. Some apps may open the link in Safari.

Also, I've never used this, but https://branch.io is a service that does all sorts of deep linking wizardry for you. Have heard good things, if you want a more thorough solution this could be worth looking into.