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Basics

Getting started

mapps.one gives your app one short link, mapps.one/your-app, that sends every visitor to the right place: iPhone users to the App Store, Android users to Google Play and everyone else to a landing page built from your store listing. This guide takes you from sign-up to a working link in a few minutes. The examples use a fictional app called Habitly.

What every app gets

URLWhat it does
mapps.one/habitlySmart link. Detects the device and redirects to the right store, or shows the landing page.
mapps.one/habitly/pageLanding page with icon, screenshots, description and store badges. It shows the page on every device.
mapps.one/habitly/privacy
mapps.one/habitly/terms
Privacy policy and terms of service, generated from a short questionnaire.
mapps.one/habitly/qr.svgA QR code that opens the smart link.

Visits to all of these are counted in cookieless analytics.

1. Create your account

Sign up with your email address and a password, or choose Continue with Google. If you sign up with email, confirm your address from the link we send you. Google accounts are confirmed straight away.

A personal workspace is created for you. Workspaces hold your apps, domains, team and plan. You can create more workspaces later, for example one per client. See Teams and client folders.

Tip: turn on two-factor authentication in your account settings. Your workspace controls links that many people will open.

2. Add your app

In the dashboard, open Apps and choose New app. Paste the link to your App Store or Google Play listing. mapps.one reads the public listing and fills in the name, icon, screenshots, description, category, developer details, rating and price.

You can add the other store links now or later. These formats are accepted:

StoreExample link
App Storehttps://apps.apple.com/app/id1612345678
Google Playhttps://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.habitly.app
AppGalleryhttps://appgallery.huawei.com/app/C109876543
Microsoft Storehttps://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9NBLGGH4NNS1
WebAny full https:// address, such as your website or a web version of the app.

Store links are saved in their short, canonical form (for example, country codes and tracking parameters are removed from App Store links). In the background we check that each link opens a real listing and mark it Verified or Invalid.

Choose your link

The last part of the URL is called the slug: habitly in mapps.one/habitly. We suggest one based on your app name. A slug must:

  • be 3 to 40 characters long,
  • use lowercase letters, numbers and single dashes only, and not start or end with a dash,
  • not be a reserved word used by mapps.one itself (such as docs, pricing, api or privacy) or a protected brand name,
  • not be taken by another app.
Choose carefully: if you change the slug later, the old link stops working straight away. That includes links in store listings, posts and printed QR codes.

3. Test the smart link

Open mapps.one/habitly on a few devices:

  • on an iPhone or iPad it opens the App Store,
  • on an Android phone it opens Google Play (Huawei devices try AppGallery first),
  • on a Windows PC it opens the Microsoft Store if you added that link, otherwise the landing page,
  • on a Mac it opens the App Store if you added that link, otherwise the landing page,
  • on anything else it shows the landing page.

You can change any of these in the app's redirect rules. See Smart links and redirects.

If you test from the command line, pass a phone user agent. Tools like curl are treated as bots, and bots always get the landing page:

curl -sI -A "Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 18_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/18.0 Mobile/15E148 Safari/604.1" \
  https://mapps.one/habitly

HTTP/2 302
location: https://apps.apple.com/app/id1612345678
cache-control: no-store, max-age=0

Test visits from real browsers are counted in your analytics like any other visit.

4. Polish the landing page

Open the app's Page tab to edit the tagline, description, feature list and screenshots, choose a theme and preview the result. Everything is imported from your store listing first, so this step is optional. See Landing pages.

5. Publish your privacy policy and terms

App Store Connect and Google Play Console both ask for a privacy policy URL. Open the Legal tab, answer the questions about the data your app collects and publish. Then paste mapps.one/habitly/privacy into the store consoles. See Privacy policy and terms.

6. Share your link

Use the smart link everywhere you mention your app: social profiles, posts, emails, ads, press releases and printed material. Add campaign tags to see which channel works best:

https://mapps.one/habitly?utm_source=instagram&utm_campaign=launch

Download a QR code for posters and packaging from the QR code tab. See QR codes and press kit.

Pausing an app

You can pause an app from its dashboard at any time. While it is paused, every public URL of the app shows a short "paused for now" page instead of redirecting. Turn it back on and the link works again immediately. Apps suspended by our trust and safety team can only be restored by contacting support.

Next steps