Tech Talk: Using Gmail? Here’s How To Make Email Links Work In Your Web Browser

September 2, 2015 / in How To / by Jason Terry

Author: Jason Terry

Hello friends! A couple of quick administrative items.

First, if you’re wondering about the results of the storytelling test I did in the Kansas Speedway blog post, I had more than 30 people contact me through phone calls, emails, text messages or in person that they’d read my article. (Thank you!) Some of them had their own stories about the Kansas Speedway. And 2 of those people I hadn’t had any communication with in more than 6 months. Success!

Second, I got a lot of positive feedback about my previous Tech Talk: Need to Take Better Screenshots? Please let me know if you’d like me to continue doing these Tech Talks once a month-ish.

Now on to the story.

Making Email Links Work In Your Browser When Using Gmail

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen Google Apps users struggle with email links in their web browsers. Until recently, I was one of them. I’d gotten used to right clicking the email address and copying it, then opening Gmail and starting a new email message. Then I pasted the email address into the recipient list. What a pain!

If you use Outlook, you simply click on an email address in your browser. Outlook opens, and a new message is automatically created with the email address filled in.

To see what your browser does, click on my email address:
jason@bluegurus.com

But that’s not the default behavior if you’re using Gmail

If you’re using Gmail, and you click an email address in a browser, you might see a dialog pop up asking you to set up Microsoft Outlook or some other default mail program. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could click on the email address and your browser was smart enough to open a new Gmail message with the recipient address filled out?

The good news is, your browser can handle it with a little help

First off, if you’re using Google Chrome, you might have already figured out how to make this work… it’s in Google’s best interests to make their browser and their web based email system play well together. But if you use a different browser, or if you’re still having the problem I described above, then read on…

There are add-ons and extensions available for your web browser that will make email hyperlinks in web pages work properly! Even if you aren’t technical, you will be able to get this to work. Follow the appropriate link below for a good solution for your particular web browser.

Firefox: Changing Your Default Email Program
Opera: Gmail Compose Add-On
Chrome, Safari, Opera: Mail To Chrome Extension

I use Firefox a lot, so I followed the “Changing Your Default Email Program” instructions above to get the behavior I want when clicking an email link. It works perfectly!

Let me know if this helped you out. And thank you for reading our stories!