Disabling user selection in UIWebView

Here are a few ways to disable selection:

Add the following to your mobile web documents

<style type="text/css">* {    -webkit-touch-callout: none;    -webkit-user-select: none; /* Disable selection/copy in UIWebView */}</style>

Programmatically load the following Javascript code:

NSString * jsCallBack = @"window.getSelection().removeAllRanges();";    [webView stringByEvaluatingJavaScriptFromString:jsCallBack];

Disable the Copy / Paste user menu:

- (BOOL)canPerformAction:(SEL)action withSender:(id)sender {        if (action == @selector(copy:) ||        action == @selector(paste:)||        action == @selector(cut:))     {        return _copyCutAndPasteEnabled;    }    return [super canPerformAction:action withSender:sender];}

I can confirm that the following code works in iOS 5.0 - 8.0.

- (void)webViewDidFinishLoad:(UIWebView *)webView {    // Disable user selection    [webView stringByEvaluatingJavaScriptFromString:@"document.documentElement.style.webkitUserSelect='none';"];    // Disable callout    [webView stringByEvaluatingJavaScriptFromString:@"document.documentElement.style.webkitTouchCallout='none';"];}

Also works for iOS 9 and later. Here's the swift code:

func webViewDidFinishLoad(webView: UIWebView) {    // Disable user selection    webView.stringByEvaluatingJavaScriptFromString("document.documentElement.style.webkitUserSelect='none'")!    // Disable callout    webView.stringByEvaluatingJavaScriptFromString("document.documentElement.style.webkitTouchCallout='none'")!}

I am using this technique in a web app for Android / iPhone (packaged with Trigger.IO) and found it would only work with the chaining syntax for the :not() pseudo-class, :

*:not(input):not(textarea) {-webkit-user-select: none; /* disable selection/Copy of UIWebView */    -webkit-touch-callout: none; /* disable the IOS popup when long-press on a link */}