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How can I change my default email to my hotmail account, as I do not have gmail, or yahoo?

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I do not have, nor do I wish to have an additional email account. I have an account with hotmail and would like to make it my default email for my browser. Hotmail is not currently one of the options I am given, the options being yahoo or gmail. I could find no place to change this setting or add hotmail. Is it possible to add a third option to the two that are given? If so, how?

I do not have, nor do I wish to have an additional email account. I have an account with hotmail and would like to make it my default email for my browser. Hotmail is not currently one of the options I am given, the options being yahoo or gmail. I could find no place to change this setting or add hotmail. Is it possible to add a third option to the two that are given? If so, how?

All Replies (4)

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Where are you seeing these options? Firefox is a web browser and as such doesn't handle your email besides navigating to the webmail page if you want to go there.

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Often on a website there is the option to email the information, such as a recipe or a job posting, to someone. The email options given if I try to do this are either yahoo or gmail. I don't have an account with either. If you click on the firefox tab in the top left corner it show this application as an email link for "mailto links". I have two email accounts already, I don't want a 3rd. I want to add my hotmail account to this list of options somehow. Is it possible?

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There is a kind of involved process to do this officially. I'll come back to that in a separate post.

However, as a shortcut, another user selected the following add-on as a solution for a similar question: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/ad.../livemailer/. If you want to fix links in webpages and you don't need to use the "Email Link" feature, that probably will cover it.

Modified by jscher2000 - Support Volunteer

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Here's the official approach which embeds the change more deeply in Firefox so any feature which wants to send an email can use it.

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the filter box, type or paste gecko and pause while the list is filtered.

(3) Double-click gecko.handlerService.allowRegisterFromDifferentHost to toggle its value from false to true. The line should turn bold.

(4) In another tab, containing a normal web page, open the Web Console using one of these methods:

  • Ctrl+Shift+k
  • orange Firefox button > Web Developer > Web Console
  • classic Tools menu > Web Developer > Web Console

A small area should open below the current page.

(5) Copy the following line of script and paste it next to the ">" at the bottom of the Web Console (it all goes on one long line):

navigator.registerProtocolHandler('mailto','https://mail.live.com/secure/start?action=compose&to=%s','Live Mail');

Then press the Enter key to execute it. An infobar should open at the top of the page. Click "Add Application". You now can close the Web Console using any of the same methods you used for opening it.

If instead of an infobar the Web Console displays "Not allowed to register a protocol handler for mailto" then switch to your about:config tab, filter on mailto. If the line is bold and set to false, double-click network.protocol-handler.external.mailto to toggle its value back to true. Then try this step 5 again.

(6) Open the Application preferences dialog using:

(WIN) orange Firefox button (or Tools menu) > Options > Applications
(MAC) Firefox > Preferences > Applications
(LINUX) Edit > Preferences > Applications

In the search box on that tab, type or paste mailto and pause while the list is filtered. If you click the drop-down list on the right side, should should now find Live Mail.

(7) Return to the tab with about:config, if you changed the filter change it back to gecko, and double-click gecko.handlerService.allowRegisterFromDifferentHost to return its value to false. You can close about:config.

Okay, you're all set up and ready to test. Success?