Get current URL of UIWebView

Question

I already tried getting the current URL of my UIWebView with: webview.request.URL. Unfortunately the NSURL was empty. Anything wrong here? I am working with Xcode 3.2.2 beta 5.

The code above should be executed in the UIWebView delegate didStartLoad.

Do that code currentURL = currentWebView.request.URL.absoluteString; after your web view loads so use - (void)webViewDidFinishLoad:(UIWebView *)webView. Maybe this may help. — Xcoder, Oct 24 '14 at 13:18
OP, considering this question has 78k views it's a pretty well referenced one. Would you mind updating the accepted answer to the heavily more up-voted one to prevent future confusion? Thanks! — Albert Renshaw, Apr 14 '17 at 01:21

score 317 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 06 '10 at 21:29

317

window.location via JS didn't work reliably for me, but this did:

currentURL = currentWebView.request.URL.absoluteString;

Credit: http://mohrt.blogspot.com/2008/10/getting-url-from-uiwebview.html

answered Sep 06 '10 at 21:29

Matt Andersen

4,816
3
24
19

9

You will get incorrect url if you site will load some ads in other request. More clear variant wrote by `Mark Sands` – OdNairy Jan 18 '12 at 07:40
does not work for search results of google. While accessing search results from google it is showing me google URL not search result page url. Any help......... – Nirav Gadhiya Oct 21 '13 at 11:46
@iOSDeveloper Google probably uses "HTML5" push state to manipulate the URL which doesn't involve executing another request (so currentWebView.request isn't updated). – danw Nov 01 '13 at 04:22
@danw : Thanks for reply...But what to do in this case. Thanks again – Nirav Gadhiya Nov 01 '13 at 06:49
@iOSDeveloper See the answer by SarahR above – danw Nov 02 '13 at 19:29
Couldn't you then access the url referrer? – Nick Turner Mar 25 '14 at 15:04
3

This method doesn't seem to work if the website has done a history.pushState – andrrs Jun 26 '15 at 15:33
looks like this webview.request doesn't update on automatic redirects. It remains the one with which the navigation has started. – Radu Simionescu Jan 29 '16 at 16:36
1

In Swift 4: webView.request?.mainDocumentURL?.absoluteString – DmitryKanunnikoff Sep 29 '17 at 20:50

score 55 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 03 '10 at 03:34

55

here's the code I use to grab the url every time you navigate to a different link within the webview:

- (void)webViewDidFinishLoad:(UIWebView *)aWebView
{
  self.url = aWebView.request.mainDocumentURL;
}

answered Dec 03 '10 at 03:34

Mark Sands

1,509
1
14
15

when I try this, the method is never called. Is there something I could be missing? – Greg Jan 25 '12 at 01:50
1

@greg make sure you set yourself as the UIWebView's delegate – bendytree Mar 03 '12 at 06:41
1

this worked for me while `webView.request.URL.absoluteString` returned `nil` – bendytree Mar 03 '12 at 06:47
Thanks, this worked for me as well and it's better than currentWebView.request.URL.absoluteString; – web hobbit Dec 31 '15 at 16:41

score 45 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:55

45

Matt's version is much cleaner. I recommend everyone to use that one instead of this

You could try this:

NSString *currentURL = [webView stringByEvaluatingJavaScriptFromString:@"window.location"];

edited May 23 '17 at 11:55

Community

1
1

answered Mar 22 '10 at 16:42

Rengers

14,911
1
36
54

Thanks. My code above works when executing in didFinishLoad.... Somewhere I've read that the js version doesn't work on every page. But I'll try. – danielreiser Mar 23 '10 at 11:12
11

Matt his version is much cleaner. So yeah I recommend everyone to use that one instead of this. – Rengers Apr 24 '12 at 09:24
1

This is the only way it works for example in m.youtube.com. All other answers return wrong URLs. – cprcrack Oct 23 '13 at 12:14
2

I actually evaluate "document.URL" and not "window.location" (which was always blank for me). This is useful for internal adjustments to the page URL on JS heavy sites that might not use traditional page loads. – SmartyP Sep 08 '14 at 19:33
1

To the two people above - Aubada Taljo and Taranfx - Rengers has noted quite boldly (literally, the text is bold) and humbly that people should use Matt's version with more than 230 likes on it below. Clearly at the time of answering this, it worked and was accepted and 30+ people felt it worked too. This is now 5.5 years old. Good stuff, Rengers. Thanks for pointing people to Matt's answer below. – App Dev Guy Nov 30 '15 at 06:38

score 36 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 06 '11 at 01:13

36

I too found that the approved answer above was not reliable. But with a slight modification, it seems to work every time:

NSString *currentURL = [webView stringByEvaluatingJavaScriptFromString:@"window.location.href"];

Note the addition of ".href" to the Javascript as this is hidden at the end of the line of code.

answered Dec 06 '11 at 01:13

SarahR

905
8
12

2

Thanks SarahR, your method works even if UIWebView loaded a page just partly. – Dmitry Makarenko Dec 19 '12 at 11:39

score 18 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 17 '14 at 10:05

This is not correct, and will return a nil:

NSString *currentURL = [webView stringByEvaluatingJavaScriptFromString:@"window.location"];

However, the code below can get a URL, but the url may not be the current URL:

NSString *url = _webView.request.URL.absoluteString;

The correct one is:

NSString *currentURL = [_webView stringByEvaluatingJavaScriptFromString:@"window.location.href"];

score 8 · Answer 6 · edited Oct 09 '13 at 09:22

8

- (void)webViewDidFinishLoad:(UIWebView *)webView{
     NSURL *currentURL = [[webView request] URL];
     NSLog(@"%@",[currentURL description]);

}

edited Oct 09 '13 at 09:22

kleopatra

51,061
28
99
211

answered Oct 09 '13 at 09:11

sivasankar

81
1
1

score 4 · Answer 7 · answered Apr 20 '12 at 12:14

4

Tried this for google search results on iPhone:

 NSString* currentURL = webView.request.URL.absoluteString;
 NSString* mainDocumentURL = webView.request.mainDocumentURL.absoluteString;

Both return the same string!

answered Apr 20 '12 at 12:14

Alex Stone

46,408
55
231
407

score 4 · Answer 8 · answered Apr 26 '17 at 08:27

4

As UIWebView is deprecated, for WKWebview to get the current url is very simple.

webView.url

answered Apr 26 '17 at 08:27

LF00

27,015
29
156
295

score 3 · Answer 9 · edited Dec 30 '12 at 17:02

3

here the code i use :

[[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:[[[webView request] URL] absoluteString]]];

edited Dec 30 '12 at 17:02

Andy Obusek

12,614
4
41
62

answered Jun 18 '11 at 14:50

Bobj-C

5,276
9
47
83

5

You are creating an NSURL by getting the string from an existing NSURL; couldn't you just copy `webView.request.URL`? – Pascal Dec 05 '11 at 16:34

score 2 · Answer 10 · answered Feb 13 '13 at 13:17

I use the shouldStartLoadWithRequest event (UIWebViewDelegate) to catch URL updates. request.mainDocumentURL.absoluteString will get you the main web page's URL (which is normally what you want), while request.URL.absoluteString will include CSS and JavaScript includes.

score 2 · Answer 11 · edited Feb 23 '15 at 12:07

2

implement delegate method,

- (BOOL)webView:(UIWebView *)webview shouldStartLoadWithRequest:(NSURLRequest *)request navigationType:(UIWebViewNavigationType)navigationType
{
    NSString  *URL = request.URL.absoluteString;    NSLog(@"%@",URL);
}

URL is the what you exactly needed.

edited Feb 23 '15 at 12:07

Ashish Kakkad

23,586
12
103
136

answered Apr 29 '13 at 08:32

Gobi M

3,243
5
32
47

score 2 · Answer 12 · answered Apr 16 '14 at 15:23

2

This always works . .

NSString* url= [webView stringByEvaluatingJavaScriptFromString:@"window.location.href"];

answered Apr 16 '14 at 15:23

Shaik Riyaz

11,204
7
53
70

score 1 · Answer 13 · answered May 13 '15 at 07:49

1

IN Swift try this,

func webViewDidFinishLoad(webView: UIWebView){
    println(WebView.request?.mainDocumentURL)
}

answered May 13 '15 at 07:49

Mohammad Zaid Pathan

16,304
7
99
130

score 1 · Answer 14 · answered Apr 21 '16 at 12:12

1

To get current URL of the WKWebView and UIWebview

Here is the code.

if (self.wkWebView) {
   NSString  *URL = self.wkWebView.title;
}else if(self.uiWebView) {
   NSString *URL = self.uiWebView.request.title;
}

answered Apr 21 '16 at 12:12

Stalin Pusparaj

741
9
11

Get current URL of UIWebView

14 Answers14

Matt's version is much cleaner. I recommend everyone to use that one instead of this

Linked