Integrate with the OS sharing UI with the Web Share API
Web apps can use the same system-provided share capabilities as platform-specific apps.
With the Web Share API, web apps are able to use the same system-provided share capabilities as platform-specific apps. The Web Share API makes it possible for web apps to share links, text, and files to other apps installed on the device in the same way as platform-specific apps.
Sharing is only half of the magic. Web apps can also be share targets, meaning they can receive data, links, text, and files from platform-specific or web apps. See the Receive shared data post for details on how to register your app as a share target.
Concepts and usage #
Capabilities and limitations #
Web share has the following capabilities and limitations:
- It can only be used on a site that is accessed via HTTPS.
- It must be invoked in response to a user action such as a click. Invoking it through the
onloadhandler is impossible. - It can share, URLs, text, or files.
- As of January 2021, it is available on Safari, Android in Chromium forks, Chrome OS, and Chrome on Windows. Chrome on MacOS is still in development. See MDN for details.
Sharing links and text #
To share links and text, use the share() method, which is a promise-based method with a required properties object. To keep the browser from throwing a TypeError, the object must contain at least one of the following properties: title, text, url or files. You can, for example, share text without a URL or vice versa. Allowing all three members expands the flexibility of use cases. Imagine if after running the code below, the user chose an email application as the target. The title parameter might become the email subject, the text, the message body, and the files, the attachments.
if (navigator.share) {
navigator.share({
title: 'web.dev',
text: 'Check out web.dev.',
url: 'https://web.dev/',
})
.then(() => console.log('Successful share'))
.catch((error) => console.log('Error sharing', error));
}If your site has multiple URLs for the same content, share the page's canonical URL instead of the current URL. Instead of sharing document.location.href, you would check for a canonical URL <meta> tag in the page's <head> and share that. This will provide a better experience to the user. Not only does it avoid redirects, but it also ensures that a shared URL serves the correct user experience for a particular client. For example, if a friend shares a mobile URL and you look at it on a desktop computer, you should see a desktop version:
let url = document.location.href;
const canonicalElement = document.querySelector('link[rel=canonical]');
if (canonicalElement !== null) {
url = canonicalElement.href;
}
navigator.share({url});Sharing files #
To share files, first test for and call navigator.canShare(). Then include an array of files in the call to navigator.share():
if (navigator.canShare && navigator.canShare({ files: filesArray })) {
navigator.share({
files: filesArray,
title: 'Vacation Pictures',
text: 'Photos from September 27 to October 14.',
})
.then(() => console.log('Share was successful.'))
.catch((error) => console.log('Sharing failed', error));
} else {
console.log(`Your system doesn't support sharing files.`);
}Notice that the sample handles feature detection by testing for navigator.canShare() rather than for navigator.share(). The data object passed to canShare() only supports the files property. Image, video, audio, and text files can be shared. (See Permitted File Extensions in Chromium.) More file types may be added in the future.
Santa Tracker case study #
Santa Tracker, an open-source project, is a holiday tradition at Google. Every December, you can celebrate the season with games and educational experiences.
In 2016, the Santa Tracker team used the Web Share API on Android. This API was a perfect fit for mobile. In previous years, the team removed share buttons on mobile because space is at a premium, and they couldn't justify having several share targets.
But with the Web Share API, they were able to present one button, saving precious pixels. They also found that users shared with Web Share around 20% more than users without the API enabled. Head to Santa Tracker to see Web Share in action.
Browser support #
Browser support for the Web Share API is nuanced, and it's recommended that you use feature detection (as described in the earlier code samples) instead of assuming that a particular method is supported.
As of early 2021, using the API to share title, text, and URL is supported by:
- Safari 12 or later on macOS and iOS.
- Chrome 75 or later on Android, and 89 or later on Chrome OS and Windows.
Using the API to share files is supported by:
- Chrome 75 or later on Android, and 89 or later on Chrome OS and Windows.
(Most Chromium-based browsers, like Edge, have the same support for this feature as the corresponding version of Chrome.)
Show support for the API #
Are you planning to use the Web Share API? Your public support helps the Chromium team prioritize features and shows other browser vendors how critical it is to support them.
Send a tweet to @ChromiumDev using the hashtag #WebShare and let us know where and how you're using it.