Open In Webmail

• Open In Webmail
  • How to use
  • Changing the default email app on macOS
  • Testing
  • Using a Custom URL

Open In Webmail

Configure your Mac to open email (mailto:) links in your web mail service of choice — works with Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook / Hotmail, Fastmail, Zoho, and AOL.

If you’re annoyed that Apple Mail opens every time you click an email address in your web browser, this is the solution.

How to use

1. Download Open In Webmail from the Mac App Store.

2. Make Open In Webmail the default email app for your Mac — this way it will can handle all email link clicks. See instructions in the app.

   If you get stuck on Apple Mail asking you to sign-in to an account, see Changing the default email app on macOS.

3. From the app, select which webmail service you use. Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, Fastmail, Zoho and AOL are all supported.

4. Done. See the Testing section if you want to test it out.

Changing the default email app on macOS

Did you open Mail and see this?

• No — Great! From the Mail menu, choose Preferences. Change the default mail app using the drop-down menu.

• Yes — Okay, there’s a workaround to get around the sign-in screen.

  • If you’re okay using Terminal to run a command, see Changing the default mail app without signing into Apple Mail.

  • Otherwise, you can trick Mail by giving it some bogus account info just to get past this screen —

    1. When asked to choose your email provider, select Other Mail Account…

    2. Enter bogus@example.com for an email address and bogus for a password. Click Sign In.

    3. When it fails to login, enter example.com in the Incoming Mail Server and Outgoing Mail Server fields. Click Sign In again.

    4. Wait for about a minute while Mail tries again to sign-in this non-existent account.

    5. Once Mail gives up on verifying the name and password, click Next to proceed.

    6. Press Done. The account is added.

    7. From the Mail menu, choose Preferences. Change the default mail app using the drop-down menu.

       At this point, you can remove the bogus email account if you like. From the Mail menu, choose Accounts…, then remove the account you just created.

Testing

The following mailto: links may be handy if you’re testing Open In Webmail.

• Message with single To Address: mailto:fred@example.com

• Message with multiple To Addresses: mailto:fred@example.com,charlie@example.com?to=emily@example.com

• Message with a CC: mailto:fred@example.com?cc=charlie@example.com

• Message with a BCC: mailto:fred@example.com?bcc=charlie@example.com

• Message with plus signs in addresses: mailto:fred+something@example.com,charlie+somethingelse@example.com

• Message with a pre-filled subject and body: mailto:fred+something@example.com?subject=Hello%20There!&body=Hello%2C%0A%0AThis%20is%20a%20pre-filled%20message%20body%21%0A%0ABest%2C%0AFred

Using a Custom URL

If your email service isn’t already supported by Open In Webmail, email fpotter@gmail.com and I’ll try to add it. In the meantime, you can provide your own custom URL template that Open In Webmail will use.

For most services, the custom URL looks something like the following where each piece of data is provided in its own field —

https://somewhere.com/compose?to={to}&cc={cc}&bcc={bcc}&subject={subject}&body={body}

Some services have begun accepting the entire mailto: URL and doing all the parsing on their side. In that case, the URL will look like —

https://somewhere.com/compose?mailto={mailto}