About Apple URL Schemes

This document describes several URL schemes that are supported by system apps on iOS, macOS, and watchOS 2 and later. Native iOS apps and web apps running in Safari on any platform can use these schemes to integrate with system apps and provide a more seamless experience for the user. For example, if your iOS app displays telephone numbers, you could use an appropriate URL to launch the Phone app whenever someone taps one of those numbers. Similarly, clicking an iTunes link launches the iTunes app and plays the song specified in the link. When a user clicks a link, what happens depends on the platform and the installed system apps.

This document describes those schemes that require special attributes or special formatting in order to be understood by the associated system app. As a result, this document does not describe all URL schemes supported on different Apple platforms.

At a Glance

You should read this document if you want to launch a system app from your iOS or macOS app, or from your web app running in Safari. This document contains both Cocoa Touch sample code—using the openURL:options:completionHandler: method of the shared UIApplication object to open URLs—and HTML samples.