Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Bug: "Create new account" on email link click

  • 7 cavab
  • 1 has this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by Matt

more options

Good day, Thunderbird is set as default email client But when I click some email link in web browser, hoping Thunderbird shall start new mail with this address - Thunderbird starts and shows me pop-up window offering to create new account. I already have few accounts so I close this pop-up window and then I have email compose window left - on:y, email address gets never inserted into "To" field. So I have to copy/paste it, every time. So weird. How to make TB work, normally - new email window with email address inserted, on link click??

Good day, Thunderbird is set as default email client But when I click some email link in web browser, hoping Thunderbird shall start new mail with this address - Thunderbird starts and shows me pop-up window offering to create new account. I already have few accounts so I close this pop-up window and then I have email compose window left - on:y, email address gets never inserted into "To" field. So I have to copy/paste it, every time. So weird. How to make TB work, normally - new email window with email address inserted, on link click??

All Replies (7)

more options

Hello

I just tested this with 102.6.1 and can't reproduce it. Could it that you are using an old version ? Do you have several accounts ? if yes, can you try to set a different account as default and try again ?

more options

gp said

I just tested this with 102.6.1 and can't reproduce it. Could it that you are using an old version ? Do you have several accounts ? if yes, can you try to set a different account as default and try again ?

Thanks for reply! Tried to change default account, didn't help Also I always have latest TB version, it's actually set up to autoupdate I wonder if that could be because TB is portable? But, it still should be able to perform such basic features imo...

Wonder if I shall get some more tips here... Unfortunately TB is getting worse as FF itself. Functions just stop working, who needs such "updates" I have no idea...

more options

The profile used is set as default in the application installation. Using "portable apps" with windows and setting Thunderbird as the default would probably see the application installed on your system invoked, by a mailto link, not the ephemeral "portable app". I suggest you look at what is installed on the operating system, my guess Thunderbird is.

more options

Matt said

The profile used is set as default in the application installation. Using "portable apps" with windows and setting Thunderbird as the default would probably see the application installed on your system invoked, by a mailto link, not the ephemeral "portable app". I suggest you look at what is installed on the operating system, my guess Thunderbird is.

Thanks for reply! Yes my default app is Thunderbird. Windows 10 btw. Only, I have no "installed" TB in my system, only portable one. Means portable TB is my default email client correct? But what's causing the problem then, and do I fix it...

more options

I have no idea, but I would guess windows invokes Thunderbird on the drive without it's wrapper that the portable apps folk use to fool software into thinking it is installed when it is not. Thunderbird explicitly looks in the windows named location (%appdata%) for a folder called Thunderbird which contains a file profiles.ini. If it is missing a create profile routine is commenced. How the portable apps wrapper fools Thunderbird into looking somewhere else I really do not know, and as I do not use it I don't care either. What you need to do is really contact the portable apps folk and ask how to fix it, because Thunderbird is acting exactly as it should when it finds no profile to use.

more options

Here's the problem and my fix: Firefox and TBird want you to install everything the default way -- everything- data and programs on drive C. That's a bad idea, even though MS does that with all user data also. Instead, put your data somewhere else and back it up, then you can more easily keep up to date images for the system drive.

Firefox does not allow adding required parameters to the command line for helper applications (WHY?). I start TBird with a batch file and set that as the Windows app for mail. The .bat file is: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird\thunderbird.exe" -profile D:\Thunderbird\Profiles\y0xtsmhb.default\ %1 This opens TBird correctly, and the %1 passes the mailto: link to open the write window.

more options

fos320 said

Here's the problem and my fix: Firefox and TBird want you to install everything the default way -- everything- data and programs on drive C. That's a bad idea, even though MS does that with all user data also. Instead, put your data somewhere else and back it up, then you can more easily keep up to date images for the system drive.

Having a data volume is neither a good or a bad thing, it's value will be entirely dependent of the use case of the individual. However specifying a profile location has been supported by the Firefox and Thunderbird profile managers I think since the release of version 1. Even some really poor selections like cloud synced folder will work for a time.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-remove-switch-firefox-profiles https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-thunderbird-profiles

Firefox does not allow adding required parameters to the command line for helper applications (WHY?).

This is not a Firefox forum, so I don't know definitively, but personally I can see no reason for such an option really. You install Firefox and use it's profile to store such settings, you can even use it's sync feature to sync the settings to other devices. So placing the profile wherever you like on your system is supported and by using a portable version on a USB key data is stored with the application.

I start TBird with a batch file and set that as the Windows app for mail. The .bat file is: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird\thunderbird.exe" -profile D:\Thunderbird\Profiles\y0xtsmhb.default\ %1 This opens TBird correctly, and the %1 passes the mailto: link to open the write window.

You use the profile manager to create a profile in D:\Thunderbird\Profiles\y0xtsmhb.default\ then copy your profile into it if it is not already there. Then make the new profile the default. Ok, so that is the profile location done and dusted. The batch file now serves no purpose at all.

MailTo: links are passed to the default mail application which in the case of Thunderbird starts with the default account to send the mail. No problem.

About the only folk I can see using command line settings to start Thunderbird are developers and addon authors. The rest of us use the profile manager if we have multiple profiles.

But if you have this batch file and a copy of Thunderbird, which apparently has never been configured with a default profile. So the Thunderbird that starts essentially as it's first startup has no default profile and is asking to configure accounts. If you had a default profile (correctly configured using the profile manager or About:profiles from the help > troubleshooting menu), you would see the mailto: link correctly processed as the product has a configured default profile.