Creating a Deep-link in Windows

What is a Deep-link

A deep-link is a URL that allows you to navigate directly to a specific page or resource within an application. You can use deep-links to access pages from a browser such as typing music:// in your browser will open your music app. That is a deep-link. There are many built-in deep-links ot your device but you also have the option to create your own.

You can also pass in data to your deep-link to open a certain page up or do a certain action such as music://quinn-xcii/straightjacket.

How to Create a Deep-link

To create a deep-link in Windows, you will need to add 2 values in the registry.

The first one is to define the protocol handler for your deep-link. This is done by creating a new key under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT with the name of your protocol (e.g., yourapp://). Inside this key, create a string value named URL Protocol with an empty string as its data.

The second thing is to define the application path so that when the url is called it opens the correct application. You can do this by settings a string in \<your-app>\shell\open\command. The strings key empty but value should be "\path\to\your\app.exe" "%1".

In the end you should have a registry that includes these entries:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\yourapp]
@="URL:yourapp"
"URL Protocol"=""

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\yourapp\shell]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\yourapp\shell\open]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\yourapp\shell\open\command]
@="\"C:\\Users\\me\\app.exe\" \"%1\""

Note: If you do not have access to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, you can use the HKEY_CURRENT_USER and prepend each key with \Software\Classes like in the example.

The %1 is there as a placeholder for the URL that was passed to the application (e.g. it would be yourapp://quinn-xcii/straightjacket).

Resources

Delphi Deep-links Demo Repo