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

I cannot open mailto links in external websites.

  • 8 respostas
  • 2 have this problem
  • 56 views
  • Last reply by northsea

more options

when I click on an email link in some websites, it says there is no application to open the mailto link. I went through the help menus, where I am asked to find the mailto feature and add an application. There is no mailto feature listed, so I can't link an application. It seems my firefox has no knowledge of mailto. I don't get a yahoo pop-up as others do. What do I do? I have Firefox 20.0.1and gmail and windows 7.

when I click on an email link in some websites, it says there is no application to open the mailto link. I went through the help menus, where I am asked to find the mailto feature and add an application. There is no mailto feature listed, so I can't link an application. It seems my firefox has no knowledge of mailto. I don't get a yahoo pop-up as others do. What do I do? I have Firefox 20.0.1and gmail and windows 7.

Chosen solution

So in the Options dialog, Applications panel, mailto doesn't appear or doesn't have any choices? This could indicate that the settings file which stores download actions is corrupted. Since its format is somewhat inscrutable, the standard medicine in this situation is to rename it so Firefox can't find it, and then a new one will be generated automatically.

Here's how:

Open your current Firefox settings (AKA Firefox profile) folder using either

  • "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Troubleshooting Information
  • Help menu > Troubleshooting Information

In the first table on the page, click the "Show Folder" button

Leaving that window open, switch back to Firefox and Exit, either:

  • "3-bar" menu button > "power" button
  • File menu > Exit

Pause while Firefox finishes its cleanup, then rename mimeTypes.rdf to something like mimeTypes.old

Start Firefox back up again. Does mailto appear in Options?

The next time you go to Yahoo it should trigger Firefox to display an infobar between the bottom of the toolbar area and the top of its page to add the latest version of its mailto handler.

Any luck?

Ler a resposta no contexto 👍 1

All Replies (8)

more options

In Windows you'll need to designate an application as your default email application, e.g. like Thunderbird.

more options

I did that I think. Windows says that firefox enabled, and that the "current email program" is the default. I cannot find a way to directly specify gmail.

When I click on a website "choose an application for the mailto application", it sends me to my document file. I searched for gmail.exe on the entire hard drive. Nothing.

more options
more options

This should work, but in the last step where I click for a drop down menu of possible applications, there is nothing there. No option of any kind, much less use gmail.

more options

See:


You can check the network.protocol-handler.external.mailto prefs on the about:config page.

If network.protocol-handler.external.mailto prefs are user set (bold) then right-click and Reset them to the default value. You can also try to change the network.protocol-handler.warn-external.mailto pref to true.

more options

Chosen Solution

So in the Options dialog, Applications panel, mailto doesn't appear or doesn't have any choices? This could indicate that the settings file which stores download actions is corrupted. Since its format is somewhat inscrutable, the standard medicine in this situation is to rename it so Firefox can't find it, and then a new one will be generated automatically.

Here's how:

Open your current Firefox settings (AKA Firefox profile) folder using either

  • "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Troubleshooting Information
  • Help menu > Troubleshooting Information

In the first table on the page, click the "Show Folder" button

Leaving that window open, switch back to Firefox and Exit, either:

  • "3-bar" menu button > "power" button
  • File menu > Exit

Pause while Firefox finishes its cleanup, then rename mimeTypes.rdf to something like mimeTypes.old

Start Firefox back up again. Does mailto appear in Options?

The next time you go to Yahoo it should trigger Firefox to display an infobar between the bottom of the toolbar area and the top of its page to add the latest version of its mailto handler.

Any luck?

more options

My bad, you want Gmail, not Yahoo. That handler is built-in and should appear on the drop-down if the mimeTypes.rdf file regenerates cleanly.

more options

Bingo!!!

Your directions were very clear and worked perfectly.

Thank you. And I did select gmail in the now available drop down box.

northsea