URL redirects in the Salesforce mobile app

Why URL Navigation Does Not Work in the Salesforce Mobile App

URL-based navigation is designed for full desktop browsers (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer) that can interpret and follow URL redirects to and from external resources. The downloadable Salesforce mobile app for iOS and Android does not support URL-based navigation.

How Navigation Works in the Salesforce Mobile App

The Salesforce mobile app uses event-based navigation through the sforce.one JavaScript navigation library (the sforce.one library is the Salesforce mobile app's built-in navigation toolkit for single-page app event routing). The sforce.one library generates navigation events within the mobile app's single-page container.
When a user navigates to an external URL via sforce.one, the mobile app exits its container context and the navigation history stack is not preserved. As a result, using the device's back button after an external resource call does not reliably return the user to the correct Salesforce record, because the app has exited the mobile app context.

What Salesforce Support Can Help With

Salesforce Support can investigate and troubleshoot issues related to sforce.one navigation library calls to external resources. However, because of limitations of event-based navigation within the mobile app container context, Salesforce cannot guarantee how external URLs are interpreted once the user exits the mobile app context.