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Need mailto: links in Word docs to open both *in Gmail* and *IN FIREFOX* how?

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  • Last reply by WebKat

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I have several "how to" documents at work that I've created to help make remembering the details of certain tasks easier. For several of these, I've got a mailto: link to some contact person which also has a subject line pre-filled with our account number so that I (or whoever uses the document) doesn't have to copy/paste all that stuff. So the link is in a WORD DOC not in a web page.

I keep two browsers open at work: Chrome, which is logged into my personal Gmail account, and Firefox, which is logged into my work email (which uses Gmail). It is critical that when I sent a work email (say, by clicking the mailto: link in the Word doc file) that it opens in FIREFOX so that it's coming from my work account.

What currently happens is that I right click the link and click "Open Hyperlink" and it launches a CHROME window, loads Gmail, and prefills the to: and subject: fields. *sigh*

I've set Firefox as my default browser through its settings. I also shut down Firefox entirely and followed the directions here which say:

If Firefox already thinks that it is default, exit Firefox completely, go to "Start Menu -> Run" and enter this into the text box:

firefox.exe -silent -setDefaultBrowser

I've done both of those things, and it still opens the mailto: link in Chrome. Could someone please help me?

I have several "how to" documents at work that I've created to help make remembering the details of certain tasks easier. For several of these, I've got a mailto: link to some contact person which also has a subject line pre-filled with our account number so that I (or whoever uses the document) doesn't have to copy/paste all that stuff. So the link is in a WORD DOC not in a web page. I keep two browsers open at work: Chrome, which is logged into my personal Gmail account, and Firefox, which is logged into my work email (which uses Gmail). It is critical that when I sent a work email (say, by clicking the mailto: link in the Word doc file) that it opens in FIREFOX so that it's coming from my work account. What currently happens is that I right click the link and click "Open Hyperlink" and it launches a CHROME window, loads Gmail, and prefills the to: and subject: fields. *sigh* I've set Firefox as my default browser through its settings. I also shut down Firefox entirely and followed the directions [http://kb.mozillazine.org/Setting_Your_Default_Browser#Force_Firefox_to_make_itself_the_default here] which say: ''If Firefox already thinks that it is default, exit Firefox completely, go to "Start Menu -> Run" and enter this into the text box: '''firefox.exe -silent -setDefaultBrowser''''' I've done both of those things, and it still opens the mailto: link in Chrome. Could someone please help me?

All Replies (3)

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That is the default browser setting.
You need to change the default mail client.

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Firefox already opens email links on web pages in Gmail, so I'm pretty sure Gmail is already the default email client.

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Well now I'm a bit miffed. Gmail was already set as the default Firefox mail client. Firefox is set as the default browser. But when I followed the directions here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/Changing%20the%20e-mail%20program%20used%20by%20Firefox#w_windows-7-and-vista for how to set the mailto: protocol default program in Windows 7 it only offered me 4 programs to choose from, and no way to add a new one or choose something different. Google Chrome was the only one that was a web browser, so it's the only one I could use for Gmail (unless someone knows a way to set up something else to send gmail email from?)... how LAME!