For a small project, I had to create a smart mailto link to make my life a bit easier. I wanted the mailto link to hold not only a to and the subject (I’d figured that much out) but a multi-lined body too. Turns out that is pretty darn easy to do. So, for my own reference, and yours, here’s a complete overview of everything possible with a mailto link.
There are a couple of variables you can use, which you’d have to do in standard URL format, remember to properly encode the & if you care about the validity of your HTML, so you use & in that case. Here’s the full mailto link syntax:
As you can see, you can add as many of these as you want and stack them on top of each other. Remember that after the email address you’ll use a question mark to prefix the first variable, and ampersands ( & ) for each consecutive variable.
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I have been looking all over and I understand that I can’t use a href mailto and have the Body be a html link. I have read this all over. But I am looking for a way around it. I dont want to send a server side email. I am using this as part of an internal use, and need to open the email client on the local machine but I have the need to put a Link in the Body of the email. The only way that I have seen to do this so far is to use a Java script. I am working from ASP. should I use Java script to do this and does any one know of a good site that can explain in full detail how to do this ?
Thanks For all the good info here.
Eric Fickes • 15 years ago
Shawn, you can do this with encoding the HTML, but it’s up to the email client to recognize and render as HTML.
If you save that to an HTML file, you should see a “click mailto” link. When the message pops up, my email client shows the HTML link, but doesn’t render as clickable.
between the ‘ ‘ is hyperlinked and underlind but it still shows the surrounding stuff in plain text It seems like some thing alot of people are looking to do but not very many clear cut answers. I understand this is due to the multitude of email clients out there. And i understand the need to encode but in my situation it is all internal and not even open to public viewing.
Shawn • 15 years ago
“click me” sorry the link showed as a link i ment to display the whole thing
Grant • 15 years ago
Can anyone please tell me why, in my mailto links, they break when they hit my & conversions?
Was just looking for this in some form processing that I’m doing for a local educational client.
I didn’t even look for this, just stumbled accross your post!
Greg • 16 years ago
Code textareas are broken in IE7.
What about those of us who use GMail? (Plus, there’s no tastier spider food than a juicy mailto: link…)
lazy drunk • 16 years ago
ooooo. now I see.
^ Post author
Joost de Valk • 16 years ago
Once and for all :) I use these mailto links for my OWN use in my OWN internal applications, not on the front end! (And I know you all mean your comments lovingly and you ARE helping the readers here :) )
Joacim Boive • 16 years ago
Actually mailto links aren’t a good way to go. This requires that the visitor has a proper setup of their email client, if they don’t have a default email client installed (or it’s configured wrong) the mailto-links won’t work.
Mailto-links may seem convenient, but it’s bad practice. Forms, how ever boring, is the way to go.
My 2C!
/J
impNERD • 16 years ago
It should also be noted that bots can and do crawl pages and spam mailto links. if you absolutely must use mailto, be sure to change the @ to something like [at] and tell visitors to change it before mailing.
^ Post author
Joost de Valk • 16 years ago
@impNERD: yeah I usually do not use these in public, and if I do, I ROT13 the entire script piece.
Maxime Guernion • 16 years ago
Thanks for theses advices ! Where did you find theses funky characters images ?
^ Post author
Joost de Valk • 16 years ago
@Maxime I’ve got a while pile of them :)
Maxime Guernion • 16 years ago
@Joost : If they are royalty free, can you send them to me? :) Thank you in advance.
lazy drunk • 16 years ago
Ring ring.. The 90s called and want their sick html-code skills back. Just kidding. Great stuff.
André Scholten • 16 years ago
Nice article, but be aware of the mailto flaws, only use it when nothing else is possible.
^ Post author
Joost de Valk • 16 years ago
@André: that’s for forms, I actually use stuff like this to quickly email all the commenters on a post, for instance.
André Scholten • 16 years ago
@Joost: forms do give a lot more trouble when used with mailto’s in their action attribute. But the same goes for plain mailto links. The browsers behavior on a mailto link isn’t defined in some sort of standard. If I click on a mailto link on my fresh installed laptop it isn’t working because I only use webmail. Windows can’t find a proper application to send the mail.
But yes: they work fine if you only use them for personal reasons.
For a small project, I had to create a smart 
click memaybe this will show it like I ment : )
I have been looking all over and I understand that I can’t use a href mailto and have the Body be a html link. I have read this all over. But I am looking for a way around it. I dont want to send a server side email. I am using this as part of an internal use, and need to open the email client on the local machine but I have the need to put a Link in the Body of the email. The only way that I have seen to do this so far is to use a Java script. I am working from ASP. should I use Java script to do this and does any one know of a good site that can explain in full detail how to do this ?
Thanks For all the good info here.
Shawn, you can do this with encoding the HTML, but it’s up to the email client to recognize and render as HTML.
EX :
click mailto
If you save that to an HTML file, you should see a “click mailto” link. When the message pops up, my email client shows the HTML link, but doesn’t render as clickable.
HTH
click mailto
I really appreciate your Help.
That sort of works but when Outlook 2007 opens it puts this in the body
click me
between the ‘ ‘ is hyperlinked and underlind but it still shows the surrounding stuff in plain text It seems like some thing alot of people are looking to do but not very many clear cut answers. I understand this is due to the multitude of email clients out there. And i understand the need to encode but in my situation it is all internal and not even open to public viewing.
“click me” sorry the link showed as a link i ment to display the whole thing
Can anyone please tell me why, in my mailto links, they break when they hit my & conversions?
We created a free PHP class, which hides mailto links from spam harvesters =
http://www.debuggeddesigns.com/open-source-projects/mailto
ah this is helpful for sure! much thank you’s!
Was just looking for this in some form processing that I’m doing for a local educational client.
I didn’t even look for this, just stumbled accross your post!
Code textareas are broken in IE7.
What about those of us who use GMail? (Plus, there’s no tastier spider food than a juicy mailto: link…)
ooooo. now I see.
Once and for all :) I use these mailto links for my OWN use in my OWN internal applications, not on the front end! (And I know you all mean your comments lovingly and you ARE helping the readers here :) )
Actually mailto links aren’t a good way to go. This requires that the visitor has a proper setup of their email client, if they don’t have a default email client installed (or it’s configured wrong) the mailto-links won’t work.
Mailto-links may seem convenient, but it’s bad practice. Forms, how ever boring, is the way to go.
My 2C!
/J
It should also be noted that bots can and do crawl pages and spam mailto links. if you absolutely must use mailto, be sure to change the @ to something like [at] and tell visitors to change it before mailing.
@impNERD: yeah I usually do not use these in public, and if I do, I ROT13 the entire script piece.
Thanks for theses advices ! Where did you find theses funky characters images ?
@Maxime I’ve got a while pile of them :)
@Joost : If they are royalty free, can you send them to me? :) Thank you in advance.
Ring ring.. The 90s called and want their sick html-code skills back. Just kidding. Great stuff.
Nice article, but be aware of the mailto flaws, only use it when nothing else is possible.
@André: that’s for forms, I actually use stuff like this to quickly email all the commenters on a post, for instance.
@Joost: forms do give a lot more trouble when used with mailto’s in their action attribute. But the same goes for plain mailto links. The browsers behavior on a mailto link isn’t defined in some sort of standard. If I click on a mailto link on my fresh installed laptop it isn’t working because I only use webmail. Windows can’t find a proper application to send the mail.
But yes: they work fine if you only use them for personal reasons.
Here’s the mailto RFC for more reading on mailto.
The examples with body texts contain spaces, while a URL cannot contain them. They should be converted to
%20;)Fixed, practice what you preach, I know ;)