Web Page E-mail Links That Don't Work: Bug or Feature?

May 26, 2008 6:53 PM

Web Page E-mail Links That Don't Work: Bug or Feature? Greetings Mefi-World! Here on my Mac OS X Panther PowerBook, nothing happens when I click on e-mail links on any web page in Safari and Firefox. Is this a feature I need to turn on, or is this intentional; an anti-spam thing? If it's the former, what do I change to make clicking on these links open a new e-mail (in Apple Mail)? All suggestions appreciated greatly.
posted by BrooklynCouch to computers & internet (11 comments total)

There's an option under Firefox preferences for handling mailto links. I'm using Firefox 3 Beta, and it's under Tools>Options>Applications (search for mailto in the list and then pick the corresponding app).

This may be different for Firefox 2.x
posted by theiconoclast31 at 6:59 PM on May 26

thanks, however on mac, that will not work....
posted by BrooklynCouch at 7:15 PM on May 26

Open up Mail's Preferences. Make sure the default mail application is "Mail." Try again, and let us know in the thread if it still is malfunctioning.
posted by WCityMike at 7:15 PM on May 26

Yes, it is set as Mail...
posted by BrooklynCouch at 7:27 PM on May 26

thanks, however on mac, that will not work....

Erm, that is how it works in Firefox on a Mac, too—you can tell it to use the system default or select other in-browser options like Yahoo mail.

Anyway. Have you moved Mail.app out of the Applications folder by any chance? Are you using any ad blocking programs, add-ons, extensions, InputManagers? Do mailto: links work when you use another account on your Mac (you can test it by making a new user and switching over to that user—this usually makes it immediately clear if you've borked something small scale or large scale).
posted by bcwinters at 7:33 PM on May 26

thanks, however on mac, that will not work....

The menus are just in different places -- try going to Firefox>Preferences...>Applications.
posted by danb at 8:00 PM on May 26

theiconoclast31, for Mac options=preferences, and they are found on the Firefox menu.

I logged out and into a different user, and in the e-mail links worked. Now what? I would prefer not losing/having to re-create all of my settings.
posted by BrooklynCouch at 8:02 PM on May 26

There is no Apple Mail item in the applications list of Firefox (under Firefox>Preferences>Applications)
posted by BrooklynCouch at 8:03 PM on May 26

2 things to try:

• Follow WCityMike's suggestion above, but set it to something other than Mail.app, close Mail, open it again, and set it back.
• In Firefox, type about:config into the address bar, filter on "mailto", and check that network.protocol-handler.external.mailto is set to true, and that network.protocol-handler.expose.mailto and network.protocol-handler.warn-external.mailto are both set to false.

posted by Pinback at 8:52 PM on May 26

Failing that, try RCDefaultApp - it should allow you to do essentially the same thing as setting the default handler in Mail.app, but you never know...
posted by Pinback at 9:10 PM on May 26

Ding Ding Ding Ding...Thank you Pinback, and thanks everyone else!
posted by BrooklynCouch at 9:20 PM on May 26