Web Share API

[BearCooder]

Description

The Web Share API is an API for sharing text, links and other content to an arbitrary destination of the user's choice.

While it’s already possible for a user to share content from a webpage via native means, they have to locate the option in the browser menu, and even then, there’s no control over what gets shared. The introduction of this API allows developers to add sharing functionality into apps or websites by taking advantage of the native content sharing capabilities on a user’s device.

Unfortunately the cross browser support is still not great:

• Safari provides full support
• Chrome provides partial support, the share and canShare method is not supported
• Firefox provides no support for share, canshare and other methods

This would be a great oportunity to reach full support on all browsers.

Specification

https://www.w3.org/TR/web-share/

Additional Signals

Standards Positions

• https://chromestatus.com/feature/5668769141620736
• https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/#web-share

Developer discussions

There is plenty evidence that browser wide support for all methods is needed. People are asking all over again in different mediums why this feature does not work on specific browsers.
Some examples:

• Web Share API Doesn't Work on Firefox (React, NextJS)
• How to Use the Web Share API
• Is Web Share API broken on Chrome + Windows 8.1?
• WebShare API Demo - End
• Why does Firefox still not support the Web Share API?
• Does the Web Share API work in Firefox on Android?
• How to share anything from your website by Web Share API

The list can go on and on. Just google web share api and look at stackoverflow etc.

Polls & Surveys

https://2022.stateofjs.com/en-US/features/browser-apis/

From State of HTML 2023 preliminary results, Web Share API was among the features that respondents expressed the most interest for: #550 (comment).
https://2023.stateofhtml.com

Browser bug reports

• Chromium 770595
• Bugzilla 1635700
• Bugzilla 1726691
• Bugzilla 1796843
• Bugzilla 1653170
• Bugzilla 1653170
• Bugzilla 1730008
• Bugzilla 1727343
• Bugzilla 1802821

Other

https://w3c.github.io/web-share/

Web Share depends on Permission Policy.
Test where Permission Policy is excluded:
https://wpt.fyi/results/web-share?label=master&label=experimental&aligned&q=path%3A%2Fweb-share%20and%20not%20permissions-policy%20and%20not%20feature-policy

[AshleyScirra]

See also: Web Share API doesn't work in Android WebView - https://issues.chromium.org/issues/40540400

[wpt-interop]

Thank you for proposing Web Share API for inclusion in Interop 2025.

We wanted to let you know that this proposal was not selected to be part of Interop this year.

On behalf of the entire Interop team, thank you for submitting this proposal for consideration. We got many more proposals than we could include in this year's project, necessitating some difficult choices. Please note this should not be taken as a comment on the technology as a whole, or our willingness to consider it for Interop in the future. We appreciate the work you put into your proposal, and would welcome your participation in future rounds of Interop.

For an overview of our process, see proposal selection. Thank you again for contributing to Interop 2025.

Posted on behalf of the Interop team.

[foolip]

@BearCooder I see you are 😕, but thank you submitting the proposal nevertheless!

One of the things that came up in the process is the difficulty of testing this on any desktop platforms, which are what we use for the scores on https://wpt.fyi/interop-2025. Robust support for mobile browsers on wpt.fyi continues to be a priority in https://github.com/web-platform-tests/interop-mobile-testing, so hopefully next year this won't be a blocker.

(Of course there's no guarantee that a proposal will be accepted even if the testing situation is great, it's also a question of priorities relative to other work.)

[BearCooder]

Thank you for the explanation I appreciate it! I will try it again for next year :)