Firefox will not open Outlook email URL link from embedded "View in Browser" link.
When I receive an email in Outlook 2016 it often has a message in the header stating, "If you have problems viewing this email, click here to view in browser." When I click on the link, Firefox attempts repeatedly to open the email but fails. An unlimited number of Firefox tabs appear one after the other. I managed to get it to stop on one of the tabs and it has a message that it cannot find the file email.mht and it provides a very long directory address to the file which includes my user name, AppData, Local, Microsoft, Outlook, etc. I have tried to simply turn off the link in the emails via Outlook, but it still appears. And I sometimes forget that it doesn't work and hit the link anyway. Then I recall that Firefox will not open the email link. I tried to duplicate the issue in IE by setting my default browser to IE, but clicking the link simply opens Firefox and repeats the problem. Even with IE as my default browser. Any suggestions? I have attached a screen shot of the email message for your review.
Chosen solution
Oh, if you are opening the link from Outlook 2016, the Office application, then this may be a Windows 10 file association issue. You want to set the file association for MHT files to Internet Explorer or maybe Edge, and not Firefox.
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You're viewing that link in Firefox, not in the separate Windows Mail or Office Outlook applications?
This usually happens when Firefox downloads a kind of content it doesn't know how to display, and in the Open with dialog, the user chooses Firefox. This creates an endless loop of Firefox not knowing how to open the content and therefore sending it to itself, and not knowing how to open it, and... you've seen that movie.
Try to clear out that instruction on the Options page:
- Windows: "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Options
- Mac: "3-bar" menu button (or Firefox menu) > Preferences
- Linux: "3-bar" menu button (or Edit menu) > Preferences
- Any system: type or paste about:preferences into the address bar and press Enter/Return to load it
Scroll down to the Applications section, and a box should follow that shows download handling instructions for various types of content. If any of them says "Use Firefox" I suggest changing that to "Always Ask". (Or it might be obvious which one it is if you want to make the fewest changes.)
Note: for PDFs, no need to change "Preview in Firefox" since Firefox does know how to display PDFs.
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Oh, if you are opening the link from Outlook 2016, the Office application, then this may be a Windows 10 file association issue. You want to set the file association for MHT files to Internet Explorer or maybe Edge, and not Firefox.
Yes, the file association for .mht was the issue. I set .mht for only IE and the issue is resolved. Thanks for the valuable and rapid reply.
Might want to add this to your future plans for updating Firefox, if it is possible for Firefox to open .mht files.
Benny
Hi Benny, support for the MHTML format has been formally requested i the bug tracking system, but I don't think it has been assigned a high priority. (Support forum volunteers don't decide one way or the other.)
MHTML support should rate a higher priority. For example, when clicking a mail link in Outlook 2016 throws me into Edge, I lose access to all the resources on my Firefox toolbar and menu. Not to say this doesn't work in Edge, but why should I have to use another program to read mail?
Gresch said
MHTML support should rate a higher priority. For example, when clicking a mail link in Outlook 2016 throws me into Edge, I lose access to all the resources on my Firefox toolbar and menu.
Links to current web pages are not related to MHTML; MHTML is a format for saving web pages to a file.
It could be a problem with Outlook 2016 not honoring your default browser setting. Could you double-check:
I really appreciate your answer. Firefox is my default browser. If an incoming email has a built inopen in browser" button, it will typically open Firefox. If there is no internal button, there is a line above the email window that says "if there are problems with how this message is displayed....etc. and the line incorporates an "open in browser" button that always opens Edge. I think the behavior is "wired in" to Outlook. I'm hoping there is a way to either use some keyboard command or figure out what the file format is and then link it to FF. Win10 has a Settings section that lets you associate file formats with programs, but in my case it only seemed to allow Explorer.
Hi Gresch, yes, the "View in Browser"/"Open in Browser" button is not a normal link and even when Firefox is the default browser, that command will go where Microsoft wants it to go.