How to make links in a TextView clickable

Question

I have the following TextView defined:

<TextView 
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:text="@string/txtCredits"
    android:autoLink="web" android:id="@+id/infoTxtCredits"
    android:layout_centerInParent="true"
    android:linksClickable="true"/>

where @string/txtCredits is a string resource that contains <a href="some site">Link text</a>.

Android is highlighting the links in the TextView, but they do not respond to clicks. What am I doing wrong? Do I have to set an onClickListener for the TextView in my activity for something as simple as this?

It looks like it has to do with the way I define my string resource.

This does not work:

<string name="txtCredits"><a href="http://www.google.com">Google</a></string>

But this does:

<string name="txtCredits">www.google.com</string>

Which is a bummer because I would much rather show a text link than show the full URL.

Labia

android:autoLink="web" this is the main line needs to be added to xml and it works like charm. thanks @Labia – Marduk

<string name="txtCredits"><a href="google.com">www.google.com</a></string> use the above sttring and it works. It is learnt that the string in href and with in anchor tag must be same and have .com or .* to work need to check why – Ipoh

<string name="txtCredits">Some text here<a href="google.com">Google</a></string> For above snippet Click on Some text here should not work in my case what should i do ? – Aggregation

try github.com/ajaysahani/MultiActionTextView – Halothane

android:focusable="true" solved my problem – Minium

For future, if somebody is using Kotlin and wants to have full control over the clickable text with callback - I wrote an article about it to have extension function for TextView - link.medium.com/TLq6s8ltc3 – Shirleenshirlene

For Deep linking see https://mcmap.net/q/46827/-how-to-make-deep-link-string-clickable-in-android-textview. – Vacate

Answer 1

Buried in the API demos, I found the solution to my problem:

File Link.java:

    // text2 has links specified by putting <a> tags in the string
    // resource.  By default these links will appear but not
    // respond to user input.  To make them active, you need to
    // call setMovementMethod() on the TextView object.

    TextView t2 = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.text2);
    t2.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());

I removed most of the attributes on my TextView to match what was in the demo.

<TextView
    android:id="@+id/text2"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:text="@string/txtCredits"/>

That solved it. It is pretty difficult to uncover and fix.

Important: Don't forget to remove autoLink="web" if you are calling setMovementMethod().

Labia

Unfortunately, this solution has a side effect when used with EditText. It disables action bar onLongClick and positions a cursor at the beginning of EditText. – Tudela

Maybe it's just me, but why would you ever do this with an EditText? – Reparative

Turns out only setMovementMethod is needed to achieve the goal. – Shank

Thanks for this, been pulling my hair out all day on what should have been a simple task! In case anyone needs to implement this on the Master-detail fragment template provided by the SDK these days, I did it like this in the onCreateView method of the DetailFragment Activity: if (mItem != null) { ((TextView) rootView.findViewById(R.id.factsheet_detail)).setText(mItem.description); ((TextView) rootView.findViewById(R.id.factsheet_detail)).setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance()); } – Trichinize

This worked great for me as well, thank you so much!! I do have one question - the whitespace area to the right of my links, after the closing </a> tag, is also clickable and therefore making it difficult to scroll through my list of results. Any thoughts? – Bucky

This is the best way... and don't forget you can create a new LinkMovementMethod like so: setMovementMethod(new LinkMovementMethod() { @Override public boolean onTouchEvent( – Stationmaster

Just as a commment, i have seen some Samsung Galaxy S3 with OS 4.3 that crash when the "setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance())" is used, so just take that into account, i had to create a validation before adding it – Janusfaced

Same here. Note that if setMovementMethod() is called, it is necessary to remove autolink="web" in the XML file, or else link won't work. Thanks for the comment – Predominance

android:linksClickable="true" in textview is by default clickable.No need of mentioning out in textview tag. – Aggregation

also make sure you don't have android:autoLink="web", as setting this along with using LinkMovementMethod won't work. – Larrisa

Just use the "autoLink" attribute in your xml for eg: android:autoLink = "web" – Stacy

Maybe using autoLink="web" in your textview should do the trick, have you tried it ? – Pruritus

Using this code the link is clickable but after clicking it i get a dialog/Fragment with title "Open with" and in description it states "No apps can perform this action." – Peanuts

Calling startActivity() from outside of an Activity context requires the FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK flag. Is this really what you want? – Landmark

Have found this to be the simplest, and most reliable solution. autolink does not work, even when testing with and without "linksClickable=true". It formats the URL but it does not launch the link. Google, why is this a mess. +1 – Drupelet

if URL starts with a capital letter then it's not working ex: Https://syakt.wordpress.com or HTTPS://ME.COM – Samarskite

"autoLink" attribute does not work on all the devices means, If you have not inserted sim card in the phone then it does not work. I tried all the workarounds but finally I found this case. Otherwise we can display phone number with country code prefixed. I have just shared my findings. – Animality

But how do I add style to the a tag? I tried but it doesn't work... – Wilie

Answer 2

I'm using only android:autoLink="web" and it works fine. A click on the link opens the browser and shows the correct page.

One thing I could guess is that some other view is above the link. Something that is transparent fills the whole parent but don't displays anything above the link. In this case the click goes to this view instead of the link.

Bellbottoms

Added more info above. Could it be the way I am defining the string as <string name="txtCredits"><a href="google.com">Google</a></string>? Looks like this is allowed but it's not working for me. – Labia

if you use linkify auto you don't need the a href part. The OS will take the string parse it for urls and converts every url to a clickable link. But this won't result in the word google being linked to google.com. It would display www.google.com as link. – Bellbottoms

using autolink works perfect for me too, plain textview without parent at all. – Zoon

android:autoLink also works great for linkifying phone numbers, addresses, and e-mail addresses (or all of the above). – Myeshamyhre

No it's not, because this answer doesn't work if you wan't to use an anchor tag with a display text different from the URL – Diplomacy

This is very helpful. I need it for calling so i use the android:autoLink="phone" and it works :) – Ticonderoga

Yeah, it works!. You can change the link color using this attribute in xml. android:textColorLink="#03A9F4" – Hangbird

I prefer android:autoLink="all" for every kind of link and add android:linksClickable="true" to be more "secure". – Scevo

Answer 3

After spending some time with this, I have found that:

• android:autoLink="web" works if you have full links in your HTML. The following will be highlighted in blue and clickable:

• Some text <a href="http://www.google.com">http://www.google.com</a>
• Some text http://www.google.com

• view.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance()); will work with the following (will be highlighted and clickable):

• Some text <a href="http://www.google.com">http://www.google.com</a>
• Some text http://www.google.com
• Some text <a href="http://www.google.com">Go to Google</a>

Note that the third option has a hyperlink, but the description of the link (the part between the tags) itself is not a link. android:autoLink="web" does NOT work with such links.

• android:autoLink="web" if set in XML will override view.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance()); (i.e.; links of the third kind will be highlighted, but not clickable).

The moral of the story is use view.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance()); in your code and make sure you don't have android:autoLink="web" in your XML layout if you want all links to be clickable.

Semitics

setMovementMethod doesn't work with second option you mentioned ie google.com.. any update? – Rok

Thanks for pointing out that <a href="http://www.google.com">Go to Google</a> won't work for autoLink. For so many answers on SO, this is the only one which mentioned it. Thank you! – Enunciation

setMovementMethod doesn't work for plain text urls... like google.com – Olaolaf

Answer 4

The above solutions didn't work for me, but the following did (and it seems a bit cleaner).
First, in the string resource, define your tag opening chevrons using the HTML entity encoding, i.e.:

<a href="http://www.google.com">Google</a>

And not:

<a href="http://www.google.com">Google</a>

In general, encode all the chevrons in the string like that. BTW, the link must start with http://

Then (as suggested here) set this option on your TextView:

 android:linksClickable="true"

Finally, in code, do:

((TextView) findViewById(R.id.your_text_view)).setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());
((TextView) findViewById(R.id.your_text_view)).setText(Html.fromHtml(getResources().getString(R.string.string_with_links)));

That's it. No regular expressiones or other manual hacks are required.

Randi

This will create an HTML Parser everytime this code is executed. Be aware of that if you use this to create links inside a list item or at other performance critical places in your app. During creation of a listitem this increases the execution time of my getView Methods off 50% – Bellbottoms

Also note spaces in the URL must be replaced with %20 – Polychaete

You can avoid the entity encoding problems by wrapping your string in the <![CDATA[ ... ]]> tag. – Mahican

WORKS for me, thank you. Not working with <![CDATA[...]]> tag. – Oby

This should be the answer! Worked perfectly well with my native app – Trina

Worked like a charm for me – Introductory

Android Studio is telling me that fromHtml is deprecated. – Shennashensi

Answer 5

I simply used this:

Linkify.addLinks(TextView, Linkify.ALL);

It makes the links clickable, given here.

Shultz

This answer is the best. Works on every Android version and we just need to add that method when the text in set in the TextView. Bonus : it allow us to add customizable links clickable – Gyve

Really simplest and best answer. it works for email/web at same time.... thanks man!!! – Evildoer

Use LinkifyCompat if you need some of the newer advanced features – Justinejustinian

Good, it makes urls without <a href... clickable – Handout

It also makes all "html" tags inside work accordingly, e.g. <b>...</b> etc. – Financial

Thanks! Highlights a link and makes it clickable (29 API emulator). But for http/https links (no myapp:// variants for Deep Linking). Instead of TextView you should insert your real textView id. – Vacate

The link is dead – Hartzog

This should be the one true accepted answer. – Facelifting

Except now .ALL is deprecated starting on 33 – Ballman

Answer 6

If you want to add an HTML-like link, all you need to do is:

• add a resource HTML-like string:

    <string name="link"><a href="https://www.google.pl/">Google</a></string>
  

• add your view to the layout with no link-specific configuration at all:

    <TextView
       android:id="@+id/link"
       android:text="@string/link" />`
  

• add the appropriate MovementMethod programmatically to your TextView:

    mLink = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.link);
    if (mLink != null) {
      mLink.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());
    }
  

That's it! And yes, having options like "autoLink" and "linksClickable" working on explicit links only (not wrapped into HTML tags) is very misleading to me too...

Douai

+1 You're right. There should be an option to enter a pattern your self so that this is matched. This way it's pretty dumb. – Striptease

Answer 7

The following should work for anyone who is looking for a combination of text and hyperlink within an Android app.

In string.xml:

<string name="applink">Looking for Digital Visiting card? 
<a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.themarkwebs.govcard">Get it here</a>
</string>

Now you can utilise this string in any given View like this:

<TextView
    android:id="@+id/getapp"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="50dp"
    android:gravity="center"
    android:textColor="@color/main_color_grey_600"
    android:textSize="15sp"
    android:text="@string/applink"/>

Now, in your Activity or Fragment, do the following:

TextView getapp =(TextView) findViewById(R.id.getapp);
getapp.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());

By now, you don't require to set android:autoLink="web" or android:linksClickable="true" using this approach.

Choli

This works well, but when yo press back from the web opened, only close the browser, but not return to the app. – Amata

Important: Don't forget to remove autoLink="web" if you are calling setMovementMethod(). – Nertie

Thanks. It worked perfectly on my project. – Drizzle

Answer 8

I added this line to the TextView: android:autoLink="web"

Below is an example of usage in a layout file.

layout.xml

<TextView
    android:id="@+id/txtLostpassword"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_gravity="center"
    android:autoLink="email"
    android:gravity="center"
    android:padding="20px"
    android:text="@string/lostpassword"
    android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceSmall" />

<TextView
    android:id="@+id/txtDefaultpassword"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_gravity="center"
    android:autoLink="web"
    android:gravity="center"
    android:padding="20px"
    android:text="@string/defaultpassword"
    android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceSmall" />

string.xml

<string name="lostpassword">If you lost your password please contact <a href="mailto:[email protected]?Subject=Lost%20Password" target="_top">[email protected]</a></string>

<string name="defaultpassword">User Guide <a href="http://www.cleverfinger.com.au/user-guide/">http://www.cleverfinger.com.au/user-guide/</a></string>

Pavier

Answer 9

I hope this will help you;

String value = "<html>Visit my blog <a href=\"http://www.maxartists.com\">mysite</a> View <a href=\"sherif-activity://myactivity?author=sherif&nick=king\">myactivity</a> callback</html>";
TextView text = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.text);

text.setText(Html.fromHtml(value));
text.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());

Exceptive

This works great. Also make sure you remove android:autoLink=? from your TextView. – Isabea

This is what finally worked for me. Valid HTML and not using android:autoLink=? is important! – Westbrooks

For Xamarin, the word shows but is not underlined and can't be clicked using the above and NOT these parameters: autoLink, linksClickable – Degree

For Xamarin setting those and setting Text or setting TextFormatted also yields the word but its not clickable nor blue/underlined. Removing the autoLink also fails. Removing only linksClickable also fails. Removing both also fails. – Degree

helloWorld.TextFormatted = Html.FromHtml (linkURL); with and without those also fails. (not linked, not blue, can't be clicked) – Degree

Those are failed using the "normal" html as listed above in this proposed solution. Escaping the HTML with &gt; etc leads to garbage (markup shown) when using TextFormatted and when using text when liunksCLickable is set but autoLink is not. – Degree

using autoLink="web" without linksClickable and with HTML escaped did not work also. With HTML not escaped, it is garbage but at least the link can be clicked. Duh, back where started. – Degree

Xamarin issue: tv.Text can only be set to string and toString on Html.FromHTML (an ISpanned) is a string of only the label and not the link info. Similarly, tv.SetText is not valid as it is in Java. Seems to be some issue in the Xamarin mapping? – Degree

Here is a Xamarin example. Does not work for me: #18556362 – Degree

adding the <html> tag is the key difference for this solution. – Brandie

Try adding style to the a element, it doesn't work, can't change it's color or remove underline – Wilie

Answer 10

The easiest thing that worked for me was to use Linkify

TextView txt_Message = (TextView) view.findViewById(R.id.txt_message);
txt_Message.setText("This is link https://www.google.co.in/");
Linkify.addLinks(txt_Message, Linkify.WEB_URLS);

And it will automatically detect the web URLs from the text in the textview.

Benjy

True, but they won't be clickable. – Balcom

The links are clickable. – Overmatch

Answer 11

You only need to add this in the text view in XML:

<TextView
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:autoLink="web"/>

Matz

Answer 12

Manage Linkify text color also

tv_customer_care_no.setLinkTextColor(getResources().getColor(R.color.blue));
tv_customer_care_no.setText("For us to reach out to you, please fill the details below or contact our customer care at 18004190899 or visit our website http://www.dupont.co.in/corporate-links/contact-dupont.html");
Linkify.addLinks(tv_customer_care_no, Linkify.WEB_URLS | Linkify.PHONE_NUMBERS);
Linkify.addLinks(tv_customer_care_no, Linkify.ALL);

Scheller

Answer 13

By using linkify:

Linkify takes a piece of text and a regular expression and turns all of the regex matches in the text into clickable links:

TextView textView = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.textView);
textView.setText("http://example.com");
Linkify.addLinks(textView, Linkify.WEB_URLS);

Don't forget to

import android.widget.TextView;

Gittel

Answer 14

Here is a very one-line Android code to make phone and URL selectable from textView no matter what the string is and what the data is. You don’t need to use any HTML tags for this.

TextView textView = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.textView1);
textView.setText("some URL is www.google.com phone [phone] another URL lkgndflg.com ");

// Makes the textView's Phone and URL (hyperlink) select and go.
Linkify.addLinks(textView, Linkify.WEB_URLS | Linkify.PHONE_NUMBERS);

Befall

Answer 15

Richard, next time, you should add this code under TextView at the layout XML instead.

android:autoLink="all"

This should be like this.

<TextView 
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
    android:text="@string/txtCredits"
    android:id="@+id/infoTxtCredits"
    android:autoLink="all"
    android:linksClickable="true">
</TextView>

You don't need to use this code (t2.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());) in order to make the link clickable.

Also, here's the truth: as long as you set the autoLink and the linksClickable, don't forget to add this at String.xml file so that the clickable link will work.

<string name="txtCredits"><a href="http://www.google.com">Google</a></string>

Gimble

Doesn't work for me. The link is clickable indeed, but the whole string is displayed, not just "Google". In fact, none of the answers here or combination thereof works so far. – Bork

Is your device or emulator internet enabled and set it to ON (wifi) or have LAN connected, @Violet Giraffe? – Gimble

It is. I never managed to make links clickable using just XML attributes, had to resort to Java code for that. Which is no big deal, but not nice. – Bork

I'm having the same problem as Violet, sure wish someone figured this out. – Slavey

Answer 16

I noticed that using android:autoLink="web" thus

<TextView
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
    android:autoLink="web"/>

worked OK for URLs but since I had an e-mail address and phone number that I wanted to link as well, I ended up using this line android:autoLink="all" like this

<TextView
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
        android:autoLink="all"/>

and it worked like a charm.

Gilstrap

Answer 17

The accepted answer is correct, but it will mean that phone numbers, maps, email addresses, and regular links, e.g., http://google.com without href tags will no longer be clickable since you can't have an autolink in the XML content.

The only complete solution to have everything clickable that I have found is the following:

Spanned text = Html.fromHtml(myString);
URLSpan[] currentSpans = text.getSpans(0, text.length(), URLSpan.class);
SpannableString buffer = new SpannableString(text);
Linkify.addLinks(buffer, Linkify.ALL);
for (URLSpan span : currentSpans) {
    int end = text.getSpanEnd(span);
    int start = text.getSpanStart(span);
    buffer.setSpan(span, start, end, 0);
}
textView.setText(buffer);
textView.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());

And the TextView should not have android:autolink. There's no need for android:linksClickable="true" either; it's true by default.

Consume

for me it worked without this, the accepted answer worked fine @Kelly can you tell the android version and device on which you got the issue? – Principate

Doesn't work for myapp:// schemes (for Deep Linking). – Vacate

The syntax highlighting seems off. E.g. near "text.length()". Is it? – Taxation

Answer 18

Add this to your EditText:

android:autoLink="web"
android:linksClickable="true"

Lully

Oh, that works. God, Android documentation is hell. – Sara

yeh , glad to help 🤝 – Lully

Answer 19

Be sure to not use setAutoLinkMask(Linkify.ALL) when using setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance()) and Html.fromHTML() on properly formatted HTML links (for example, <a href="http://www.google.com/">Google</a>).

Cleliaclellan

Answer 20

Use this...

TextView.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {

                    @Override
                    public void onClick(View v) {
                        // TODO Auto-generated method stub
                        Intent in=new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW,Uri.parse("http://www.twitter.com/"));
                        startActivity(in);
                    }
                    
                });

And add a permission in the manifest file:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"/>

Pendergast

This will work, but bear in mind the app may not need Internet permission beyond this clickable TextView. Maybe overkill in those cases – Freezedrying

Does it really relate to the question? – Rok

This wasn't relevant to the question. – Isaacson

This will never fail! – Stasiastasis

I like this method as it allows us to have just the anchor text show rather than the full URL. The anchor text can also be styled eg colored green and underlined. – Slinkman

Thanks! Works for Deep linking (myapp:// scheme). – Vacate

This was the only method that worked for me among all suggested. – Blucher

Answer 21

You need only this:

android:autoLink="web"

Insert this line into a TextView that can be clickable with a reference to the web. The URL is set as a text of this TextView.

Example:

 <TextView
    android:id="@+id/textViewWikiURL"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:textSize="20sp"
    android:textStyle="bold"
    android:text="http://www.wikipedia.org/"
    android:autoLink="web" />

Colicroot

Answer 22

This is how I solved clickable and visible links in a TextView (by code)

private void setAsLink(TextView view, String url){
    Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(url);
    Linkify.addLinks(view, pattern, "http://");
    view.setText(Html.fromHtml("<a href='http://" + url + "'>http://" + url + "</a>"));
}

Playreader

but I'd like to see the text and when clicking the text it redirect to the link (opened by the browser)? This solution doesn't solve that, does it? – Transcalent

Answer 23

Use the below code:

String html = "<a href=\"http://yourdomain.com\">Your Domain Name</a>"
TextView textview = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.your_textview_id);
textview.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());
textview.setText(Html.fromHtml(html));

Aylward

Answer 24

[Tested in Pre-lollipop as well as in Lollipop and above]

You can get your HTML string from the backend or from your resources files. If you put your text as an resource string, make sure to add the CDATA tag:

<string name="your_text">![CDATA[...<a href="your_link">Link Title</a>  ...]]</string>

Then in code you need to get the string and assign it as HTML and set a link movement method:

String yourText = getString(R.string.your_text);

if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.N) {
   textView.setText(Html.fromHtml(yourText, Html.FROM_HTML_MODE_COMPACT));
} else {
   textView.setText(Html.fromHtml(yourText));
}

try {
   subtext.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());
} catch (Exception e) {
   //This code seems to crash in some Samsung devices.
   //You can handle this edge case base on your needs.
}

Chinachinaberry

Answer 25

The reason you're having the problem is that it only tries to match "naked" addresses. Things like "www.google.com" or "http://www.google.com".

Running your text through Html.fromHtml() should do the trick. You have to do it programmatically, but it works.

Minny

The links in the TextView are a different color than other text in the string, so I think they're being recognized as links. They're just not clickable :-( – Labia

Answer 26

I had to hunt this down in a couple places, but I finally got this version of the code to work.

File strings.xml:

<string name="name1">&lt;a href="http://www.google.com">link text1&lt;/a></string>
<string name="name2">&lt;a href="http://www.google.com">link text2&lt;/a></string>

File myactivity.xml:

<TextView
    android:id="@+id/textview1"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_marginTop="5dp" />

<TextView
    android:id="@+id/textview2"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_marginTop="5dp" />

File myactivty.java (in onCreate()):

TextView tv1 = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.textview1);
TextView tv2 = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.textview2);

tv1.setText(Html.fromHtml(getResources().getString(R.string.name1)));
tv2.setText(Html.fromHtml(getResources().getString(R.string.name2)));
tv1.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());
tv2.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());

This will create two clickable hyperlinks with the text link text1 and link text2 which redirect the user to Google.

Grandparent

Answer 27

Create an extension method on SpannableString:

private fun SpannableString.setLinkSpan(text: String, url: String) {
    val textIndex = this.indexOf(text)
    setSpan(
        object : ClickableSpan() {
            override fun onClick(widget: View) {
                Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW).apply { data = Uri.parse(url) }.also { startActivity(it) }
            }
        },
        textIndex,
        textIndex + text.length,
        Spanned.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE
    )
}

Use it to make string in your TextView clickable:

    myTextView.apply {
        movementMethod = LinkMovementMethod.getInstance()

        val googleUrl = "http://www.google.com"
        val microsoftUrl = "http://www.microsoft.com"

        val google = "Google"
        val microsoft = "Microsoft"

        val message = SpannableString("$google & $microsoft").apply {
            setLinkSpan(google, googleUrl)
            setLinkSpan(microsoft, microsoftUrl)
        }

        text = message
    }

Enjoy!

Density

In case others have the same problem: I had a hard time getting this solution to work, before realizing I had missed the line on movementMethod. Adding it did the trick. – Watchword

Answer 28

If using an XML-based TextView, for your requirement you need to do just two things:

1. Identify your link in the string, such as "this is my WebPage." You can add it in the XML content or in the code.

2. In the XML content that has the TextView, add these:

    android:linksClickable="true"
   
    android:autoLink="web"
   

Fourteenth

Answer 29

Add CDATA to your string resource

Strings.xml

<string name="txtCredits"><![CDATA[<a href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a>]]></string>

Irrespective

Answer 30

I just wasted so much time to figure out you have to use getText(R.string.whatever) instead of getString(R.string.whatever)...

Anyway, here is how I got mine working. With multiple hyperlinks in the same text view too.

TextView termsTextView = (TextView) getActivity().findViewById(R.id.termsTextView);
termsTextView.append("By registering your account, you agree to our ");
termsTextView.append(getText(R.string.terms_of_service));
termsTextView.append(", ");
termsTextView.append(getText(R.string.fees));
termsTextView.append(", and the ");
termsTextView.append(getText(R.string.stripe_connected_account_agreement));

termsTextView.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());

<TextView
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:id="@+id/termsTextView"/>

String example:

    <string name="stripe_connected_account_agreement"><a href="https://stripe.com/connect/account-terms">Stripe Connected Account Agreement</a></string>

Swiercz

This is so much more straight-forward and easy to use. I have multiple links with custom text working in a dynamically added TextView because of this. This needs the most upvotes possible. Been breaking my head over Spanned strings, custom TextViews and HtmlCompat.fromHtml methods. Thank you so much @luca992. – Persuade

Answer 31

Autolink phone did not work for me. The following worked like a charm,

TextView tv = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.emergencynos);
String html2="<br><br>Fire - <b><a href=tel:997>997</a> </b></br></br>";
tv.append(Html.fromHtml(html2));
tv.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());

Solorio

What is "Autolink phone"? – Taxation

Answer 32

I use the autolink to "auto underline" the text, but I just made an "onClick" that manages it (I ran into this problem myself).

<TextView
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_marginRight="10dp"
    android:textSize="18dp"
    android:autoLink="all"
    android:text="@string/twitter"
    android:onClick="twitter"/>

public void twitter (View view)
{
    try
    {
        Intent browserIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, Uri.parse("http://twitter.com/onaclovtech"));
        startActivity(browserIntent);
    }
    finally
    {
    }
}

It doesn't require any permissions, as you are passing the intent off to apps that manage those resources, (i.e., the browser).

This was what worked for me.

Unicorn

You are not making a link that is clickable, you are just putting the whole TextView clickable... That's not the question. – Laniferous

Agreed, but sometimes a workaround that works, is the same thing. Clearly 5 years after the most popular answer has been written, this was still a problem, and its been 6 months sice i had the same problem, but ended up with a different but working solution. – Unicorn

Answer 33

My code was like this:

<TextView
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    android:id="@+id/link"
    android:text="@string/forgot"
    android:layout_marginTop="16dp"
    android:gravity="center"
    android:linksClickable="true"/>

My Java code was like this:

/*TextView action*/
        TextView textView = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.link);
        textView.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());
        textView.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(View v) {
                startActivity(new Intent(LoginActivity.this,forgot.class));
            }
        });  

This just points the link to another activity. But that link is clickable and works smoothly. Tested in Android Studio 1.5 (Preview)

Trina

Why in the past sense? Is it no longer like this? – Taxation

This code will work... I was just pasting an old code – Trina

Answer 34

Use this:

package com.stackoverflow.java.android;

import android.content.Context;
import android.text.method.LinkMovementMethod;
import android.text.method.MovementMethod;
import android.util.AttributeSet;

import androidx.annotation.Nullable;
import androidx.appcompat.widget.AppCompatTextView;

public class HyperlinkTextView extends AppCompatTextView {
    public HyperlinkTextView(Context context) {
        super(context);
    }

    public HyperlinkTextView(Context context, @Nullable AttributeSet attrs) {
        super(context, attrs);
    }

    public HyperlinkTextView(Context context, @Nullable AttributeSet attrs, int defStyleAttr) {
        super(context, attrs, defStyleAttr);
    }

    /**
     * Set default movement method to {@link LinkMovementMethod}
     * @return Link movement method as the default movement method
     */
    @Override
    protected MovementMethod getDefaultMovementMethod() {
        return LinkMovementMethod.getInstance();
    }
}

Now, simply using com.stackoverflow.java.android.HyperlinkTextView instead of TextView in your layout files will solve your problem.

Rhabdomancy

Answer 35

For those who are having issues with strings reading from XML content and assigning dynamically.

In case you are using text from a strings.xml resource, it seems that the HTML tags gets stripped out.

So you have to use <![CDATA[**your string with click links**]]> in the strings.xml file to convert it to HTML using Html.fromHtml(string).

Sawyer

Could you please give an example, I have this error. For example, how to convert this in order to use with dynamically content: <string name"myStringWithParameter"> %1$s hello <a href="www.google.com">google<a/></string> – Dagall

@Dagall - You can use strings inside cdata like this <string name="sample_html"><![CDATA[%1$s Check <a href="https:// www.google.com">google<a/>]]></string> then replace with val replacedString = String.format(getString(R.string.sample_html), "Tada..") and set from Html textViewHtml.text = Html.fromHtml(replacedString, Html.FROM_HTML_MODE_LEGACY) also add to make it clickable textViewHtml.movementMethod = LinkMovementMethod.getInstance() --- (Your google link was not correct .. add https ) – Sawyer

Answer 36

You can simply add links to your TextView with Android's Linkify library.

For example, let's add a clickable legal notice TextView to our Activity.

strings.xml

<string name="text_legal_notice">By continuing, you confirm that you have read, understood and agreed to our %1$s and %2$s.</string>
<string name="text_terms_conditions">Terms &amp; Conditions</string>
<string name="text_privacy_policy">Privacy Policy</string>

Activity class

final String termsConditionsText = getString(R.string.text_terms_conditions);
final String privacyPolicyText = getString(R.string.text_privacy_policy);
final String legalText = getString(
        R.string.text_legal_notice,
        termsConditionsText,
        privacyPolicyText
);
viewBinding.textViewLegalNotice.setText(legalText);

Linkify.addLinks(
        viewBinding.textViewLegalNotice,
        Pattern.compile(termsConditionsText),
        null,
        null,
        (match, url) -> "https://policies.google.com/terms"
);
Linkify.addLinks(
        viewBinding.textViewLegalNotice,
        Pattern.compile(privacyPolicyText),
        null,
        null,
        (match, url) -> "https://policies.google.com/privacy"
);

Sewellyn

Answer 37

In kotlin you can do

binding.yourTextView.movementMethod = LinkMovementMethod.getInstance()

your string should be in HTML format

Phenomenalism

Answer 38

As the databinding is out, I'd like to share my solution for databinding TextViews supporting HTML tags with clickable links.

To avoid retrieving every textview and giving them html support using From.html we extend the TextView and put the logic in setText()

public class HtmlTextView extends TextView {

    public HtmlTextView(Context context) {
        super(context);
    }

    public HtmlTextView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
        super(context, attrs);
    }

    public HtmlTextView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs, int defStyleAttr) {
        super(context, attrs, defStyleAttr);
    }

    @Override
    public void setText(CharSequence text, BufferType type) {
        super.setText(Html.fromHtml(text.toString()), type);
        this.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());
    }
}

I've made a gist which also shows example entity and view for using this.

Old

Html.fromHtml() should never be called from the main thread. – Rhabdomancy

Answer 39

Not to beat this to death, but here is what is happening under the covers with Linkfy, etc. You'll notice that setText() takes a CharSequence. Linkify, etc. converts the String to Spannable and adds Spans. Spannable indirectly inherits from CharSequence, just like String, so it works with setText(). With Spannables you can mix and match Spans and do all sorts of interesting things. Here's a simple example.

val textView = findViewById<TextView>(R.id.myTextView)
val span = SpannableStringBuilder(getString(R.string.linkText))
textView [0, textView .length] = URLSpan("https://myWebiste.com/")
textView.text = span
textView.movementMethod = LinkMovementMethod.getInstance()

Just a note, the Kotlin syntax is very slick but it obfuscates the Spannable.setSpan() call, which is where the magic happens.

Legault

Answer 40

Simple Solution using Kotlin Programming Language

activity_main.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
     android:layout_height="match_parent"
     android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:id="@+id/linear1"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    >
    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/txtWeb"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:textSize="24sp"
        android:layout_margin="5dp"
        android:padding="5dp"
        android:layout_gravity="fill_horizontal"
        />
    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/txtEmail"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:textSize="24sp"
        android:layout_margin="5dp"
        android:padding="5dp"
        android:layout_gravity="fill_horizontal"
        />

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/txtPhone"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:textSize="24sp"
        android:layout_margin="5dp"
        android:padding="5dp"
        android:layout_gravity="fill_horizontal"
        />
</LinearLayout>

MainActivity.kt

class MainActivity : AppCompatActivity() {
    override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main)

        val tvWeb = findViewById<TextView>(R.id.txtWeb)
        val tvEmail = findViewById<TextView>(R.id.txtEmail)
        val tvPhone = findViewById<TextView>(R.id.txtPhone)

        //for web address
        tvWeb.setText("Please visit us: www.google.com")
        Linkify.addLinks(tvWeb, Linkify.WEB_URLS)

        //for email address
        tvEmail.setText("Please Email Us:[email protected]")
        Linkify.addLinks(tvEmail,Linkify.EMAIL_ADDRESSES)

        //for phone number
        tvPhone.setText("Please Call Us: [phone]")
        Linkify.addLinks(tvPhone,Linkify.PHONE_NUMBERS)
    }
}

Lineal