Register Cocoa app for a custom URL scheme

customURL.m

Here is what you need to do to register your app for a custom URL scheme (for the example we will use a "myapp" scheme).

1) In your Info.plist, add a new entry for CFBundleURLTypes: <key>CFBundleURLTypes</key> <array> <dict> <key>CFBundleURLName</key> <string>MyApp's URL</string> <key>CFBundleURLSchemes</key> <array> <string>myapp</string> </array> </dict> </array>

2) Somewhere in your application's startup code (e.g. init), add this code: - (void)registerMyApp { [[NSAppleEventManager sharedAppleEventManager] setEventHandler:self andSelector:@selector(getUrl:withReplyEvent:) forEventClass:kInternetEventClass andEventID:kAEGetURL]; }

- (void)getUrl:(NSAppleEventDescriptor )event withReplyEvent:(NSAppleEventDescriptor )replyEvent { NSString url = [[event paramDescriptorForKeyword:keyDirectObject] stringValue]; // Now you can parse the URL and perform whatever action is needed }


Related Tidbits:


In Mac OS X Tiger and later, you can call LSSetDefaultHandlerForURLScheme to register an app as the default handler for a protocol, as would be need for a common protocol such as http, or ftp.

macOS 10.13 simplifies this by adding the NSApplicationDelegate method func application(_ application: NSApplication, open urls: [URL])

i'm trying to register custom URL for app targeted for 10.13 and above. But when system throws a warning message saying "no default application associated for custom protocol - abc://' and ask user to select the app. If user select it then it wont prompt again. ANy idea why its not registering custom protocol?