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I am trying to allow users of our website to click on a link and open a mail application / gmail to compose a message. I am using the mailTo method which opens my mail application on mac, however when I set gmail as my default mail application in browsers settings (eg chrome and firefox) it will open gmail in the same window as the page on which the link was clicked.

I know that target=_blank is not really intended for mailTo links but I tried it and even this does not open the link in a blank window.

Surely this isnt a bug in these browsers, there must be a way to do this.

royhowie
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undefined
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1 Answers1

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Mailto does not open a window or tab in any instance. If you want to use a window or tab you need to configure a form and allow the form to open in your window/tab. Of course, you'll have to configure the form to send mail with whatever method is available on your server.

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Community
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Steven
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    This is a confused affirmation, it looks like. When the browser is configured to send mailto: links through a web based email program like gmail or hotmail, the link is followed in the current tab/window. Specifying a target is ignored. This _does_ appear to be an oversight in the handling of web-based mailto: handling as it does display the mail composition panel in the browser and as such should be subject to target control. – Dodger Sep 08 '15 at 19:39
  • Indeed, but at the time of publishing, there was no solution. By now, the _blank target opens a new window for webbased clients (but opens a blank page and the standalone client for those using standalone clients) – Steven Sep 11 '15 at 09:40