How do you link to applications in the Android market?

Question

When posting app links, I'm always using a link on Cyrket or AppBrain -- becuase I can't get a link to anything in the official Android Market.

But I have seen some links out there for use w/ Android itself ( ''market://'' protocol ):

market://details?id=de.schildbach.oeffi

(as seen @ Android Dev Studio)

Is it possible to web-link to apps in the Market so that a non-Android user can link to the appropriate Market page in a non-Android web browser?

This question is being marked as duplicate of a closed question, that in turn mentions this one as duplicate (infinite cycle)! — Zuul, Jul 15 '13 at 11:00

score 12 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:18

12

If you are talking about making a link that goes directly to the app in the market on an Android device, yes, just append the Package Name to the market://details?id= or market://search?q=pname: to create the link. In your example above the Package Name is: de.schildbach.oeffi.

If you don't know the package name you can get it from AndroLib. It's a pain because their pages are so busy but if you can't find it just do a text search for "Package Name."

Just to be clear this link format only works when clicked on and Android Market enabled device.

Update: Yes. You now access the full Android Market on the website, and when you use the link format that therefromhere mentions in his answer (with http://market...), users clicking it on their phone will be brought to app in the market and users clicking on it on the web will be brought to the app's market web page.

Edit: No. The Android Market can only be accessed on Android Devices (more specifically only Android Devices with the Android Market Enabled).

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:18

Community

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answered Sep 14 '10 at 20:26

Matt

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I've clarified the original post. – Michael Paulukonis Sep 14 '10 at 21:05
I added a new answer. Do you think I should I have done this or edited my original answer? And yes I probably should post this question in meta but I'm running late, will do later. – Matt Sep 14 '10 at 21:18
I believe you should refine your answer when you get a chance and then delete the extra. – danivovich Sep 14 '10 at 22:30
It's a work-in-progress, and we got an excellent answer out of it; thanks! – Michael Paulukonis Sep 15 '10 at 02:15

therefromhere · Answer 2 · 2010-09-26T16:01:44.123

5

It's worth noting that you don't have to use the market:// protocol - you can swap in http://market.android.com/ instead of market://.

eg these two links should have the same effect:

http://market.android.com/details?id=de.schildbach.oeffi
market://details?id=de.schildbach.oeffi

Unfortunately, this currently isn't quite as useful as it could be since a non-Android browser will just get a 404 from the http:// link, but I imagine if Google wanted to they could give you a useful page instead.

See the Publishing Your Applications page in the Android developer guide for more details.

edited Sep 26 '10 at 16:01

answered Sep 26 '10 at 15:55

therefromhere

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Also, some websites (like this one apparently) will automatically linkify the first one, but not the second. – Tyler Sep 26 '10 at 22:28

How do you link to applications in the Android market?

2 Answers2