How to exclude Notes and Reminders apps from the UIActivityViewController?

Question

I am creating a UIActivityViewController and pass String and URL to it. This, obviously, configures the UIActivityViewController to use some items which I want to exclude (my objective is to share the info about my app).

I have managed to exclude lots of system provided activities (like 'Add to Reading list') by setting the appropriate excludedActivityTypes.

However, I am unable to exclude Reminders and Notes apps. Can someone suggest a way of doing it? These apps appear 3rd and 4th on the list and therefore make Twitter and Facebook not visible unless user scrolls.

Answer 1

There is a way, but involves private API.

Sometimes Apple makes exceptions, especially if you fix a bug.

Let's dive into details...

---

UIActivityViewController has got a private method called "_availableActivitiesForItems:", which returns an array of UISocialActivity objects.

UISocialActivity has got an interesting property, called "activityType", which returns a domain-formatted activity type.

After some tests, I managed to discover the Reminder and Notes activity types:

• com.apple.reminders.RemindersEditorExtension
• com.apple.mobilenotes.SharingExtension

Unfortunately, passing those two types into ".excludedActivityTypes" didn't make any difference.

"_availableActivitiesForItems:" to the rescue!

OLD WAY:

Update: I've found a better way to do it.

The first solution I've posted doesn't work in some cases, thus shouldn't be considered stable.

Header:

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>

@interface UISocialActivity : NSObject

- (id)activityType;

@end

@interface UIActivityViewController (Private)

- (id)_availableActivitiesForItems:(id)arg1;

@end

@interface ActivityViewController : UIActivityViewController

@end

Implementation:

@implementation ActivityViewController

- (id)_availableActivitiesForItems:(id)arg1
{
    id activities = [super _availableActivitiesForItems:arg1];
    NSMutableArray *filteredActivities = [NSMutableArray array];

    [activities enumerateObjectsUsingBlock:^(UISocialActivity*  _Nonnull obj, NSUInteger idx, BOOL * _Nonnull stop) {

        if (![[obj activityType] isEqualToString:@"com.apple.reminders.RemindersEditorExtension"] &&
            ![[obj activityType] isEqualToString:@"com.apple.mobilenotes.SharingExtension"]) {
            [filteredActivities addObject:obj];
        }

    }];

    return [NSArray arrayWithArray:filteredActivities];
    }
    @end

NEW WAY:

Header:

@interface UIActivityViewController (Private)

- (BOOL)_shouldExcludeActivityType:(UIActivity*)activity;

@end

@interface ActivityViewController : UIActivityViewController

@end

Implementation:

@implementation ActivityViewController

- (BOOL)_shouldExcludeActivityType:(UIActivity *)activity
{
    if ([[activity activityType] isEqualToString:@"com.apple.reminders.RemindersEditorExtension"] ||
        [[activity activityType] isEqualToString:@"com.apple.mobilenotes.SharingExtension"]) {
        return YES;
    }
    return [super _shouldExcludeActivityType:activity];
}

@end

"Illegal", but it works.

It would be great to know if it actually passes Apple validation.