How to change your default mailto client to GMail or Yahoo

Posted on August 29, 2007 at 3:52 pm

Make sure to read other posts from the Firefox Addons series!

Wouldn’t it be nice if Microsoft didn’t try always try to make you use their software for everything that you want to do on Windows? One of the things that annoys me the most is the fact that the default mailto clients can only be Outlook Express, Outlook, Eudora, Thunderbird, etc, basically programs which have to be installed on your computer in order to work.

That’s annoying because ever since Google and Yahoo have come along, lots of people like to check their mail through the web and don’t want it stuck on just one computer! So if you click on one of those email links on a web page by accident instead of copying and pasting it, you’ll have to wait a few minutes while Outlook Express or Outlook load up and waste your time.

Thankfully, there is a way to install a script in FireFox whereby if you click on a mailto link, the default client can be set to GMail or Yahoo! Sadly, this will only work with FireFox and not Internet Explorer, so if you’re reading this from IE, switch over!

In order for this to work, you have to install the GreaseMonkey FireFox add-on and then install the script. Don’t worry if this sounds a little technical, just click the links and click install! You don’t have to do anything very technical to get it to work. Once you’ve installed the GreaseMonkey add-on, click here to download the Mailto 2 Webmail script. Again, this is very simple, just click the Install this script button at the top right.

The only semi-technical thing you have to do with the script is if you’re using Yahoo Mail. You need to click on Tools, Greasemonkey and Manage User Scripts.

Next, click on the Mailto script and click the Edit button. Browse to Notepad.exe or WordPad.exe under C:\Windows to use as your text editor. Under the “EDIT THIS ONLY” section, change the whichService value to Yahoo instead of Gmail and change yahooServer to the server name when you are checking your mail at Yahoo.com.

It’s usually right before the .mail.yahoo part and it looks something like us.fXXX.

Save the file and you’re done! Of course for GMail users, you don’t have to do anything at all, it just works! Remember though that you need to restart FireFox before the changes take effect. Now click on a mailto link and you’ll be happy to see a new message automatically composed in your favorite web mail program! Unfortunately, Hotmail does not support this and therefore does not work with this plug-in.

There are tons more Greasemonkey scripts out there that do all sorts of things, so make sure to read my post on 25 Greasemonkey scripts you should take a look at. Enjoy!

[tags]mailto, change default mailto client to gmail, default mailto handler, set default mailto to yahoo[/tags]

» Filed Under Computer Tips

Comments

12 Responses to “How to change your default mailto client to GMail or Yahoo”

Annie said on : August 31st, 2007 at 6:49 pm

I was so excited to see this post on how to change my default mail to Yahoo. Unfortunately it didn’t work

Annie said on : August 31st, 2007 at 7:01 pm

Sorry, I was doing it wrong. It works now and I can’t thank you enough for creating this!!

Dick Mariner said on : September 6th, 2007 at 7:19 am

“How to change your default mailto client to GMail”
Another quick way : go to Google Talk > settings > general > tick box for “Open Gmail when I click on email links”. Click OK…..another easy job done..!!

Michelle said on : November 17th, 2007 at 3:30 pm

AWESOME!!!! I have spent the better part of my day trying to figure this out/search the web and find the answer. It is one of those things that has irritated me for some time and I finally decided to fix it. I am running Vista and most info I could find wouldn’t work with this OS. Your suggestion is the only thing that worked. THANK YOU!!

SusanZ said on : January 19th, 2008 at 7:24 pm

Wow! like Michelle I was sooo happy to finally find an answer to this problem! I use yahoo mail and was almost ready to celebrate having successfully fixed it when I got to the part about changing the yahooServer. What do I do if I have 2 yahoo email addresses: one’s the address I have with my Yahoo hosted website and one’s my personal yahoo address (plus my husband has an address on the same computer)?
I hope this isn’t too stupid a question?

jma said on : February 7th, 2008 at 1:59 am

it works great good job i was looking for this fix for a long time

stelvio said on : February 13th, 2008 at 6:57 am

Thanks so much for your suggestion, the author of the script did an excellent job! Now my gmail apps mail account opens like a charm in firefox when clicking ‘mailto’ links…

Larry said on : July 20th, 2008 at 12:57 pm

I printed and followed the directions. BUT, when I open Greasemonkey and go to Manage User Scripts, all I have is a page with “Included Pages” which is blank, and “Excluded Pages” which has http://mail.google.com and https://mail.google.com. There is no “EDIT THIS ONLY”. Now what???

PPC Coach said on : February 3rd, 2009 at 10:10 pm

Great post. I’ll definitely be back. Thanks again, Gael

Andrew Wilson said on : February 26th, 2009 at 7:36 pm

There’s a WAY simpler way than this…

In Firefox / Tools / Options / Applications / Mailto –> Default will prob be MS Outlook, so click drop down arrow and select e.g. – Gmail

Done!

Mark Waite said on : October 31st, 2009 at 2:30 pm

There is a similarly simple way from the current Yahoo mail client. In the Yahoo Mail “Options” drop down menu at the top right of the Yahoo Mail client, there is a pick which says “Set Y! Mail as default webmail”.

Thanks for answers!

Max said on : November 6th, 2009 at 2:50 am

I’m glad that userscript I wrote so long ago helped some people. (It apparently has been installed about 13,846 times!) As some people have mentioned, Firefox version 3 and up is now able to provide nearly the same functionality, on its own, so there isn’t really a need for Mailto 2 Webmail anymore. They do it a little differently, though, so I might update the old Mailto 2 Webmail script to make it easier to use/configure, and make it a little more useful.
Great write-up on how to go about using that script.