GoKawiilJoe Maring / Android Authority
I get plenty of WhatsApp messages from friends and family every day, many of which are links to other websites, Reddit threads, Instagram Reels, or YouTube videos. Tapping these links opens them directly in their native apps — except for Instagram Reels links, which open in the default browser because I don’t have the Instagram app on my phone.
Although I’m fine with this most of the time, it’s not a perfect system. I don’t always want to open links in the native app, since that can influence my algorithm and surface similar content I may not want to see. For the longest time, I relied on a workaround to navigate this problem. It involved copying the link I received in WhatsApp and opening it in a browser. It was just as clunky as it sounds.
That’s when I decided to give LinkSheet a shot. LinkSheet is a free, open-source app that fixes Android’s broken link-handling. Instead of deciding which app to open a link for me, it lets me choose one. And now, it’s become one of the first few open-source Android apps I install on every phone.
Do you miss the Open with dialog from older Android versions? 35 votes Yes. 60 % No. It added unnecessary friction. 23 % Don't care. I already use a third-party link handler. 17 %
LinkSheet intercepts links and lets me choose how to open them
Yash Wate / Android Authority
In previous versions of Android — Android 12 or earlier — tapping a link would bring up the Open with dialog, where you could select an app to open that link in. For example, if you had the official Reddit app and a third-party Reddit client installed on your phone, every time you tapped a Reddit link, it’d surface the dialog with both apps, so you could choose the one preferred.
However, with Android 12, Google introduced a new system that automatically opens links in an app if it’s verified for that specific domain — unless you don’t have a compatible app on your device, in which case it opens it in the default browser. Although Google did this to improve speed and security, for some people, including me, the missing “Open with” prompt is a dealbreaker.
Linksheet doesn’t force app choices on you. Instead, it lets you choose which apps to open links in.
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