What about App Clip links outside of the Messages app?

In the documentation for Developing a Great App Clip under Understand How Users Launch App Clips it says users launch app clips by tapping a link that someone has shared in the Messages app.

What about links from other places? What about a link from Mail.app or from a different messaging app or from web search result? Do App Clip links behave the same as Universal Links?

Replies

Im guessing they will not work.
Hi David,

The app clip URL only launches the app clip from one of the mentioned invocations. This means that sharing an app clip URL through the Mail app doesn't work.

Please file a feedback request with Feedback Assistant and let us know your use cases.
To clarify, you say "This means that sharing an app clip URL through the Mail app doesn't work" -- I am guessing that the app clip URL will not load an app clip, but instead open in Safari, correct?
That's how understood it as well. Then from Safari the user could tap the Smart App Banner.

Documentation Engineer, please let us know if we are understanding this correctly.
Hi re5i5tor and David,

Thanks for your patience.

Short answer: yes!

Longer answer:
Say you set up your website to display the Smart App Banner for example.com/home and associate the domain with the app clip. If you share a link to that web site as an iMessage in the Messages app, iOS will automatically launch the app clip when a recipient taps on the link. When you share the link to the web site in another app (Mail, Notes, ...), the link will take the user to the web site in Safari and they can then tap on the Smart App Banner to launch the app clip.
Hey guys ,
Apple doc now says this about invoking the app clip from messages. But still the url from message is opening in Safari for me always. I have added the associated domain to the app clip and the app and also added the appclip's id in the apple app site association file

Tapping a link that someone shares in the Messages app (as a text message only)
Note
Tapping a link that someone shares as an SMS opens the App Clip’s invocation URL in Safari
Is the meta tag for App Clips required for the App Clip to show up in Messages, given the text message sent contains the an associated domain?

Example:
text message = "Check out my app! https:// + myexample.com/foo?identifer=123456"
associated domain includes: appclips:myexample.com/foo

Hi, is this still the case? Is it possible for me to open the app clip by pasting the invocation link in Safari or by tapping a link sent to me (not via the messages app)?