Oddly, I noticed that a web app running on iPad in Safari/iOS linking to the Airtable domain causes the Airtable iOS app to load and display the record selected in the Airborne web app.
This means my comment is not entirely accurate - Airtable iOS does seem to support at least one URL scheme and perhaps many more. I do see a number of iOS apps that support URL Schemes but which are not registered.


Oddly, I noticed that a web app running on iPad in Safari/iOS linking to the Airtable domain causes the Airtable iOS app to load and display the record selected in the Airborne web app.
This means my comment is not entirely accurate - Airtable iOS does seem to support at least one URL scheme and perhaps many more. I do see a number of iOS apps that support URL Schemes but which are not registered.


Yes, I have noticed that, at the very least, the airtable:
URL scheme is available, and sometimes a URL for an Airtable record will successfully launch the Airtable app on my phone.
However, I’ve never had the Airtable app also successfully resolve the table/record being requested – after 15s or so of a spinning circle, it just exposes the last table/record I was viewing when I had the app open, or else the home screen.
If, indeed, they have exposed extended parameters for their URL scheme, it would be great if they’d publish that in their reference docs. It would certainly be a step in the right direction.
However, and I am no expert on this, but I think that Apple is trying to move away from apps using URL schemes to expose interoperability, and rather requesting that they donate Shortcuts actions
instead (I think these are similar to Siri intents
, but targeted at the Shortcuts app and capable of passing and receiving parameters). This gives Apple a more secure and sandboxed way of handling interoperability.
I’m certainly not going to go exploring trying to see what URL scheme parameters I can get to work - I’ll just keep using the API from Shortcuts for now. But it would be really great if I could just explore a set of rich actions within the Shortcuts app instead!
Yes, I have noticed that, at the very least, the airtable:
URL scheme is available, and sometimes a URL for an Airtable record will successfully launch the Airtable app on my phone.
However, I’ve never had the Airtable app also successfully resolve the table/record being requested – after 15s or so of a spinning circle, it just exposes the last table/record I was viewing when I had the app open, or else the home screen.
If, indeed, they have exposed extended parameters for their URL scheme, it would be great if they’d publish that in their reference docs. It would certainly be a step in the right direction.
However, and I am no expert on this, but I think that Apple is trying to move away from apps using URL schemes to expose interoperability, and rather requesting that they donate Shortcuts actions
instead (I think these are similar to Siri intents
, but targeted at the Shortcuts app and capable of passing and receiving parameters). This gives Apple a more secure and sandboxed way of handling interoperability.
I’m certainly not going to go exploring trying to see what URL scheme parameters I can get to work - I’ll just keep using the API from Shortcuts for now. But it would be really great if I could just explore a set of rich actions within the Shortcuts app instead!
Yes - the original schemes approach does create a greater responsibility for developers to ensure that script injections (inside the URL) are thwarted.
And I’m not entirely sure what the underlying difference is between schemes and how Shortcuts (the app) processes connectedness. But I believe Shortcuts is dependent upon the other as described in this Apple document.
I get the sense that one does not replace the other as evident in this how-to from Apple. Indeed, according to this, the Shortcuts app (itself) supports URL Schemes.

There’s also Universal and Custom links and I have a hunch that maybe Airtable is using one of these link methods to make it possible to open deep links into their iOS app. This would explain why Shortcuts cannot interact in any way with Airtable on iOS.
I don’t want to make these comments overly complex but I think it’s important to put a finer point on the difference between links and actions. Universal links make it possible to access and index content in mobile apps, whereas, Airtable can benefit by going further to support actions - i.e., find a record, make a copy, open the copy in edit mode. The latter - as I understand the architecture - cannot be achieved without supporting a few discrete URL Schemes.
Bottom Line
Airtable does not seem to play well in terms of calling it from other apps or when calling it from Shortcuts (which I think is formerly Workflow).
This suggestion gets two very enthusiastic thumbs up from me!
It blows my mind this isn’t supported. If a competitor comes in and supports this, I will switch immediately.
AirTable - can you provide some transparency into what the thinking is? Are you not trying to own the “personal db” space?
It blows my mind this isn’t supported. If a competitor comes in and supports this, I will switch immediately.
AirTable - can you provide some transparency into what the thinking is? Are you not trying to own the “personal db” space?
I second that @Benjamin_Thomas! Nearly every competitor has deep linking/universal links as a working feature.
It’s absurd that Airtable hasn’t prioritized this. To then not allow the use of the browser version on a mobile device is further frustrating. Either let collaborators log in to the browser version of airtable on mobile of fix it. Email notifications are worthless and sharing links on mobile absolutely pointless until it is fixed.
Horrible UX for the users of Airtable, particularly needing to manage leads in real-time.
I have been using AirTable as a CRM and other needs for my small service business and it is a life changing app. Adding a record is very fast. I can't see how doing it via a shorcut would be much faster. It is asking for native Shortcut commands to a data base app with soo many command and input options.
Within AirTable you can also create macros for more complex, repetitive tasks.