Gmail Email Links

Mailto: link fixes: Some users may experience issues with email links if they use a web-based email service (like Yahoo or Gmail for example) but have not set their browser to use said email provider as their mailto link handler. If you have set up Mozilla Firebird or Outlook as your email client you should be able to open mailto links without any issues.

A guide has been constructed for two common web-based email systems for the sake of convenience.

If you use Yahoo mail, here is the Yahoo help guide for setting mailto handlers in various browsers.

For Gmail users, the below guide has instructions for the four major browsers.

FirefoxFor Firefox Users:

  1. In the top right corner of your Firefox browser, click the Firefox settings button:, then choose "Options"class="simpleborder" alt="Settings button" .
  2. Click the "Applications" tab.
  3. In the dropdown list beside the "mailto" content type, select Gmail, and click "OK".
  4. Restart your browser.

ChromeFor Chrome Users:

  1. Open Gmail in Chrome and click the Protocol Handler icon:  in your browser's address bar. If you don't see this icon, skip ahead to step 3.
  2. Click "Use Gmail" then "Done".
  3. If you don't see the icon, click the settings buttonSettings Button in the top right hand corner.
  4. Scroll down to the very bottom and click "Show Advanced Settings".
  5. Click the "Content Settings" button under the "Privacy" header.
  6. In the Pop-up window, scroll to "Handlers" and click the "Manage Handlers" button.
  7. Select Gmail from the mailto dropdown, and click "Done".


Internet ExplorerFor Internet Explorer Users:

  1. There are two options for IE Users who wish to keep IE as their default browser: use Chrome to open email links in Gmail but retain IE for web links, OR install the Google Toolbar to manage your IE handlers correctly, since IE does not currently provide options for the user to correct this in native IE settings. Some versions of IE do provide setting changes for setting a mailto handler, but for those that do not the following instructions are provided.
  2. The simpler fix: Install Google Toolbar
  3. Once installed, click the wrench iconwrench at the top right corner of your Internet Explorer browser to open the Toolbar Options window.
  4. Scroll down to "Web-browsing tools"
  5. Select "Use Gmail for 'Mail To' links"
  6. Click "Save."
  7. The more complicated fix: install Google's Chrome browser and set it to use Gmail for mailto links using the instructions above.
  8. For the die-hard anti-chrome folks out there, do not despair! You can keep IE for your default browser while utilizing Chrome for mailto links. Simply read the default browser prompts carefully as they appear and make your choices accordingly.

SafariFor Safari Users:

  1. You must download Google's Mailto extension for Safari here.
  2. Select Gmail from the list of options.
  3. Restart your browser