When an OS X app is launched by a registered URL scheme, how do you access the full URL?

Question

I'm working on an Cocoa app which is launched/activated using URLs with a custom scheme which is registered in the Info.plist file like so: ``` CFBundleURLTypes CFBundleURLName Open myscheme:// URLs CFBundleURLSchemes myscheme ``` My question is, once the app is launched or activated, how do I tell what the URL was that launched the app? On iOS, this is easy with the -application:openURL:sourceApplication:annotation: method on the UIApplicationDelegate since it is passed an NSURL instance. I want to be able to pass in data into my app with URLs like myscheme://do/something/awesome

Accepted Answer

In your app delegate's `-applicationWillFinishLaunching:`, do:

```
[[NSAppleEventManager sharedAppleEventManager] setEventHandler:self andSelector:@selector(handleAppleEvent:withReplyEvent:) forEventClass:kInternetEventClass andEventID:kAEGetURL];
```

And `handleAppleEvent:withReplyEvent:` should look something like:

```
- (void)handleAppleEvent:(NSAppleEventDescriptor *)event withReplyEvent:(NSAppleEventDescriptor *)replyEvent {
    NSString *urlString = [[event paramDescriptorForKeyword:keyDirectObject] stringValue];
    // do something with the URL string
}
```

When an OS X app is launched by a registered URL scheme, how do you access the full URL?

Solution

Problem