How can I force external links from browser-window to open in a default browser from Electron?

I'm using the BrowserWindow to display an app and I would like to force the external links to be opened in the default browser. Is that even possible or I have to approach this differently?

I came up with this, after checking the solution from the previous answer.

mainWindow.webContents.on('new-window', function(e, url) {
  e.preventDefault();
  require('electron').shell.openExternal(url);
});

According to the electron spec, new-window is fired when external links are clicked.

NOTE: Requires that you use target="_blank" on your anchor tags.

new-window is now deprecated in favor of setWindowOpenHandler in Electron 12 (see https://github.com/electron/electron/pull/24517).

So a more up to date answer would be:

mainWindow.webContents.setWindowOpenHandler(({ url }) => {
  shell.openExternal(url);
  return { action: 'deny' };
});

If you're not using target="_blank" in your anchor elements, this might work for you:

  const shell = require('electron').shell;
  
  $(document).on('click', 'a[href^="http"]', function(event) {
    event.preventDefault();
    shell.openExternal(this.href);
  });

Improved from the accepted answer ;

1. the link must be target="_blank" ;

2. add in background.js(or anywhere you created your window) :

    window.webContents.on('new-window', function(e, url) {
      // make sure local urls stay in electron perimeter
      if('file://' === url.substr(0, 'file://'.length)) {
        return;
      }
   
      // and open every other protocols on the browser      
      e.preventDefault();
      shell.openExternal(url);
    });
   

Note : To ensure this behavior across all application windows, this code should be run after each window creation.

I haven't tested this but I assume this is should work:

1. Get WebContents of the your BrowserWindow

   var wc = browserWindow.webContents;

2. Register for will-navigate of WebContent and intercept navigation/link clicks:

wc.on('will-navigate', function(e, url) {
  /* If url isn't the actual page */
  if(url != wc.getURL()) {
    e.preventDefault();
    openBrowser(url);
  } 
}

3) Implement openBrowser using child_process. An example for Linux desktops:

var openBrowser(url) {
  require('child_process').exec('xdg-open ' + url);
}

let me know if this works for you!

For anybody coming by.

My use case:

I was using SimpleMDE in my app and it's preview mode was opening links in the same window. I wanted all links to open in the default OS browser. I put this snippet, based on the other answers, inside my main.js file. It calls it after it creates the new BrowserWindow instance. My instance is called mainWindow

let wc = mainWindow.webContents
wc.on('will-navigate', function (e, url) {
  if (url != wc.getURL()) {
    e.preventDefault()
    electron.shell.openExternal(url)
  }
})

Check whether the requested url is an external link. If yes then use shell.openExternal.

mainWindow.webContents.on('will-navigate', function(e, reqUrl) {
  let getHost = url=>require('url').parse(url).host;
  let reqHost = getHost(reqUrl);
  let isExternal = reqHost && reqHost != getHost(wc.getURL());
  if(isExternal) {
    e.preventDefault();
    electron.shell.openExternal(reqUrl);
  }
}

Put this in renderer side js file. It'll open http, https links in user's default browser.

No JQuery attached! no target="_blank" required!

let shell = require('electron').shell
document.addEventListener('click', function (event) {
  if (event.target.tagName === 'A' && event.target.href.startsWith('http')) {
    event.preventDefault()
    shell.openExternal(event.target.href)
  }
})

For Electron 5, this is what worked for me:

• In main.js (where you create your browser window), include 'shell' in your main require statement (usually at the top of the file), e.g.:

  // Modules to control application life and create native browser window
  const {
      BrowserWindow,
      shell
  } = require('electron');
  

• Inside the createWindow() function, after mainWindow = new BrowserWindow({ ... }), add these lines:

  mainWindow.webContents.on('new-window', function(e, url) {
      e.preventDefault();
      shell.openExternal(url);
  });
  

I solved the problem by the following step

1. Add shell on const {app, BrowserWindow} = require('electron')

const {app, BrowserWindow, shell} = require('electron')

2. Set nativeWindowOpen is true

function createWindow () {
  // Create the browser window.
  const mainWindow = new BrowserWindow({
    width: 1350,
    height: 880,
    webPreferences: {
      nativeWindowOpen: true,
      preload: path.join(__dirname, 'preload.js')
    },
    icon: path.join(__dirname, './img/icon.icns')
})

3. Add the following listener code

  mainWindow.webContents.on('will-navigate', function(e, reqUrl) {
    let getHost = url=>require('url').parse(url).host;
    let reqHost = getHost(reqUrl);
    let isExternal = reqHost && reqHost !== getHost(wc.getURL());
    if(isExternal) {
      e.preventDefault();
      shell.openExternal(reqUrl, {});
    }
  })

reference https://stackoverflow.com/a/42570770/7458156 by cuixiping

I tend to use these lines in external .js script:

let ele = document.createElement("a");
let url = "https://google.com";
ele.setAttribute("href", url);
ele.setAttribute("onclick", "require('electron').shell.openExternal('" + url + "')");