How to close chrome custom tabs

Question

In my app I have opened a url via Chrome Custom Tab. We know that when user taps the device back button or custom back button Chrome Custom Tab will be closed. Is it possible to close the Chrome Custom Tab by programatically without user intervention.

Answer 1

There is no such support currently to close chrome custom tab programatically. But you can close it by starting your previous activity from where you launched chrome custom tab if you want.

Let, you open chrome custom tab from "MainActivity" and there is a option menu item "Close" in chrome custom tab, and on "Close" menu item click you want to close chrome custom tab and to go back the "MainActivity", then you can do it by starting "MainActivity". For this, set your activity launchMode as singleTask and then start your activity with FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP when button is clicked.

Check my demo code for details, hope it will help someone who want something like this.

AndroidManifest.xml :

<activity
    android:name=".MainActivity"
    android:launchMode="singleTask">
    <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
        <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
    </intent-filter>
</activity>

<receiver
    android:name=".CustomTabReceiver"
    android:enabled="true" />

MainActivity.java :

    public class MainActivity extends Activity {
    public static String CHROME_PACKAGE_NAME = "com.android.chrome";
    private Context mContext;

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
        mContext = this;
    }

    public void onClick(final View view) {
        switch (view.getId()) {
            case R.id.btnOpenChromeCustomTab:
                launchChromeCustomTab();
                break;
            default:
                return;
        }
    }

    private void launchChromeCustomTab() {
        Uri uri = Uri.parse("http://www.google.com/");
        Intent intent = new Intent(mContext, CustomTabReceiver.class);
        PendingIntent pendingIntent = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(mContext, 0, intent, 0);

        CustomTabsIntent.Builder customTabsBuilder = new CustomTabsIntent.Builder();
        customTabsBuilder.addMenuItem("Close", pendingIntent);
        CustomTabsIntent customTabsIntent = customTabsBuilder.build();
        customTabsIntent.intent.setPackage(CHROME_PACKAGE_NAME);
        customTabsIntent.intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
        customTabsIntent.launchUrl(mContext, uri);
    }

}

CustomTabReceiver.java :

public class CustomTabReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {

        @Override
        public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
            Intent myIntent = new Intent(context, MainActivity.class);
            myIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
            myIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
            context.startActivity(myIntent);
        }

    }

activity_main.xml:

<Button
    android:id="@+id/btnOpenChromeCustomTab"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_centerInParent="true"
    android:onClick="onClick"
    android:text="Open Chrome Custom Tab" />

Note:
Make sure that updated Chrome has installed on device by explicit checking before testing this code. Because in this demo code chrome custom tab has opened by setting a hard-coded package to com.android.chrome and app may break on systems that don't have Chrome installed.
So please follow the Best Practices to launch chrome custom tab.