Deep links, permissions and a clean slate

Why: a push notification should open the product page, the app should survive a user who refused the camera, and onboarding should run again after a reset. Each of these is one click here, no adb commands needed.

What happens

Hover the App card next to the phone: it opens the app’s actions.

1. Deep link. A deep link is an address that opens a specific screen inside the app, like myapp://checkout?id=42 or an https:// link the app claims. Type it into the Deep link field and press Open. Only in this app sends it to your app directly; without it Android picks the app, as a tap would.
2. Permissions. Click a permission to grant it, click again to revoke it.
3. Force stop kills the app; Restart app starts it cold.
4. Clear data wipes everything the app stored: it’s back to the welcome screen, as after a fresh install.

Good to know

• Links you opened are remembered in your browser, so a repeated check is one click.
• Clear data can’t be undone. If you want to come back to the current state, press Save app data first (see Keep sign-in between sessions).
• Restart app and Save app data work without ADB; deep links, permissions, force stop and clear data need the device’s ADB, which the page opens in the background. That’s why the card may say “Connecting to ADB” for a moment.

If it doesn’t work

• The deep link opens nothing: the app doesn’t handle that address. Check the scheme and the path with the developers, or try without Only in this app to see whether any app takes it.
• The buttons are greyed out: ADB isn’t available to you, for example in someone else’s session. Only the session’s owner and admins get these tools by default.

More details: ADB tools.