Copy to clipboard using Javascript in iOS

Question

I'm using this function to copy a URL to the clipboard:

function CopyUrl($this){

  var querySelector = $this.next().attr("id");
  var emailLink = document.querySelector("#"+querySelector);

  var range = document.createRange();
  range.selectNode(emailLink);  
  window.getSelection().addRange(range);  

  try {  
    // Now that we've selected the anchor text, execute the copy command  
    var successful = document.execCommand('copy', false, null);
    var msg = successful ? 'successful' : 'unsuccessful'; 

    if(true){
        $this.addClass("copied").html("Copied");
    }

  } catch(err) {  
    console.log('Oops, unable to copy');  
  }  

  // Remove the selections - NOTE: Should use   
  // removeRange(range) when it is supported  
  window.getSelection().removeAllRanges();
}

Everything works fine on desktop browsers, but not on iOS devices, where my function returns successfully, but the data isn't copied to the clipboard at all. What's causing this and how could I solve this problem?

Answer 1

Update! iOS >= 10

Looks like with the help of selection ranges and some little hack it is possible to directly copy to the clipboard on iOS (>= 10) Safari. I personally tested this on iPhone 5C iOS 10.3.3 and iPhone 8 iOS 11.1. However, there seem to be some restrictions, which are:

1. Text can only be copied from <input> and <textarea> elements.
2. If the element holding the text is not inside a <form>, then it must be contenteditable.
3. The element holding the text must not be readonly (though you may try, this is not an "official" method documented anywhere).
4. The text inside the element must be in selection range.

To cover all four of these "requirements", you will have to:

1. Put the text to be copied inside an <input> or <textarea> element.
2. Save the old values of contenteditable and readonly of the element to be able to restore them after copying.
3. Change contenteditable to true and readonly to false.
4. Create a range to select the desired element and add it to the window's selection.
5. Set the selection range for the entire element.
6. Restore the previous contenteditable and readonly values.
7. Run execCommand('copy').

This will cause the caret of the user's device to move and select all the text in the element you want, and then automatically issue the copy command. The user will see the text being selected and the tool-tip with the options select/copy/paste will be shown.

Now, this looks a little bit complicated and too much of an hassle to just issue a copy command, so I'm not sure this was an intended design choice by Apple, but who knows... in the mean time, this currently works on iOS >= 10.

With this said, polyfills like this one could be used to simplify this action and make it cross-browser compatible (thanks @Toskan for the link in the comments).

Working example

To summarize, the code you'll need looks like this:

function iosCopyToClipboard(el) {
    var oldContentEditable = el.contentEditable,
        oldReadOnly = el.readOnly,
        range = document.createRange();

    el.contentEditable = true;
    el.readOnly = false;
    range.selectNodeContents(el);

    var s = window.getSelection();
    s.removeAllRanges();
    s.addRange(range);

    el.setSelectionRange(0, 999999); // A big number, to cover anything that could be inside the element.

    el.contentEditable = oldContentEditable;
    el.readOnly = oldReadOnly;

    document.execCommand('copy');
}

Note that the el parameter to this function must be an <input> or a <textarea>.

Old answer: previous iOS versions

On iOS < 10 there are some restrictions for Safari (which actually are security measures) to the Clipboard API:

• It fires copy events only on a valid selection and cut and paste only in focused editable fields.
• It only supports OS clipboard reading/writing via shortcut keys, not through document.execCommand(). Note that "shorcut key" means some clickable (e.g. copy/paste action menu or custom iOS keyboard shortcut) or physical key (e.g. connected bluetooth keyboard).
• It doesn't support the ClipboardEvent constructor.

So (at least as of now) it's not possible to programmatically copy some text/value in the clipboard on an iOS device using Javascript. Only the user can decide whether to copy something.

It is however possible to select something programmatically, so that the user only has to hit the "Copy" tool-tip shown on the selection. This can be achieved with the exact same code as above, just removing the execCommand('copy'), which is indeed not going to work.