Can a PWA or Web App share itself to another mobile phone in an offline environment (no internet connection)?

Question

Can a PWA or WebApp on one mobile phone be shared to another mobile phone other than via a URL?

For example, can a PWA be transferred via Bluetooth, Nearby Me, AirDrop, NFC, WhatsApp attachment, Email attachment, SD card, etc?

Answer 1

There is a set of web standards being developed that will enable this. Read Get started with Web Bundles for a look at how this might work in the future.

Answer 2

If you're talking about Android devices, yes it's possible - but not easy.

When you install a PWA on Android, it creates an APK under the covers to let you see it in the app drawer.

The catch is that the APK is auto-generated, so there's no way to tell which APK corresponds to which PWA. However, you can just grab them all if you have the Android debug tool adb and apktool.

adb shell "pm list packages --user 0 | grep org.chromium.webapk."

You'll get a list that looks like this:

package:org.chromium.webapk.a79c27b6ef85c23e5_v2
package:org.chromium.webapk.ac118272f3b0621ee_v2
....

So... find the paths to all of them:

adb "pm path org.chromium.webapk.a79c27b6ef85c23e5_v2"
adb "pm path org.chromium.webapk.ac118272f3b0621ee_v2"
...

This gives you paths to the APKs:

package:/data/app/~~ORVW-0fh4YPCMiWvVym9rw==/org.chromium.webapk.a78c276aec85c43f6_v2-AXPM5z2ED5bG0oGszEFW1g==/base.apk
package:/data/app/~~ex3iSpy2GiO_586ze1OKdA==/org.chromium.webapk.ac118272f3b0621ee_v2-XYCqDyzZ3HRjQLFrA3xmBXQ==/base.apk
...

Next, download the APKs. You'll need to give them local names; I used just the first 4 characters of the webapk auto-generated ID:

adb pull /data/app/~~ORVW-0fh4YPCMiWvVym9rw==/org.chromium.webapk.a78c276aec85c43f6_v2-AXPM5z2ED5bG0oGszEFW1g==/base.apk a78c.apk
adb pull /data/app/~~ex3iSpy2GiO_586ze1OKdA==/org.chromium.webapk.ac118272f3b0621ee_v2-XYCqDyzZ3HRjQLFrA3xmBXQ==/base.apk ac11.apk
...

Now that you have the APKs, extract them using apktool:

java -jar apktool_2.8.0.jar d a78c.apk
java -jar apktool_2.8.0.jar d ac11.apk
...

Each extracted APK will have a subdirectory with the APK name. In each subdirectory will be a file called AndroidManifest.xml.

Look at each AndroidManifest.xml for android:host="some website". That's the website that corresponds to the PWA. You can then install that on another device:

adb install a78c.apk

Voila, your PWA is now on another Android device.