Configure Firefox to use Gmail or Google Apps for MailTo Links

Posted by Sam Lesher on September 13, 2008

These instructions will configure Firefox to use Gmail or your Google Apps hosting account to handle mailto links:

First, type about:config in the address bar, search for gecko.handlerService.allowRegisterFromDifferentHost, and set the value to true.

Then, log into GMail or your Google Apps mail URL, paste this line of JavaScript into your address bar, and hit enter:
For Gmail:
javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler("mailto","https://mail.google.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s","GMail")

For Google Apps:
javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler("mailto","https://mail.google.com/a/example.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s","GMail")
Replace “example.com” with your domain.

After you hit enter, Firefox should ask permission to add Gmail as the default mailto handler.

To undo this, click Edit Preferences > Applications. Search for mailto. Choose Application Details from dropdown under Actions. Highlight Gmail and click Remove.

I used these instructions on Firefox 3.0.1 on Ubuntu 8.10. This post was compiled from info found in this article and its comments at lifehacker.com.

Posted in Firefox   |   Comments (7 )

Comments

Comment from sghiassy on April 22, 2009 @ 7:24 pm

Hey,

Thanks for the instructions.

Just as a note, when I copied and pasted the javascript into the address bar it didn’t work. The reason was, is that the double-quote ["] copied over incorrectly.

So for future people’s use… simply retype the double-quotes to get it to work.

Comment from Lucian on April 22, 2009 @ 7:53 pm

Thanks for the note, sghiassy. Have found this tutorial on a zillion blogs, but each and every one of them had the double quote problem. Darn wordpress.

Comment from Sam Lesher on April 22, 2009 @ 8:02 pm

Thanks for the heads up, sghiassy. The post should be fixed now.

Comment from Chris on April 28, 2009 @ 2:09 pm

This rocks, thanks for making this so easy and helpful. You make wannabee techies like me look good.

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Comment from Mike on July 29, 2009 @ 12:46 pm

You might want to update this post, as I used it .. however .. the latest version of Firefox 3.5 already has Gmail in its list .. and thankfully your insertion of the Google Apps handler had a slightly different name for the list. You used GMail for Google Apps while firefox used Gmail for regular gmail. Note the uppercase and lowercase “m”.

Regardless I would just change the google apps javascript pasty to go something like this instead:

javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler(“mailto”,”https://mail.google.com/a/example.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s”,”Google Apps GMail”)

So that if someone is selecting them from the Firefox Tools> Applications Settings > Mailto: handler .. it will show up in the list as:

Google Apps GMail

Thanks,

// mike

Comment from Coyote on December 17, 2009 @ 10:35 am

I had to change network.protocol-hndler.expose.mailto and network.protocol-handler.external.mailto both to true before I got the Add Application confirmation, But now it works….

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