When the email link on your site does nothing

The problem

A customer wrote in: a visitor had clicked the email address on their contact page and nothing happened. No new message, no error, nothing. The visitor assumed the site was broken and said so. The owner, reasonably, assumed the same.

What we checked

We clicked the link from a Mac, a Windows laptop, an iPhone, and an Android phone. It opened a new, addressed message every time. The link itself was fine: a plain mailto: link, the kind every contact page has had since about 1995.

The cause

An email link doesn’t send anything. It tells the visitor’s computer, “open your email program and start a new message to this address.” That’s the whole job.

If the computer doesn’t know which email program that is, it does nothing. If it guesses wrong, it opens one the visitor never uses, usually the Mail app that came with the machine, which then asks them to set up an account they don’t want. Either way it looks like the website failed.

This is a setting on the visitor’s device, not on the site. That’s why it works for most people and not for a few, and why nothing we change on the site will fix it for them. What we can do is tell them where the setting is.

The fix

Pick your device. Each one takes about a minute.

Gmail in Chrome

1. Open Gmail in Chrome.
2. Look at the right end of the address bar for a small icon that looks like two overlapping diamonds. Click it and choose Allow. That tells Chrome to open email links in Gmail.
3. Don’t see the icon? Type chrome://settings/handlers into the address bar and make sure Gmail is listed under sites allowed to handle email links. If it isn’t, go back to Gmail, reload the page, and the icon should come back.

Mac

1. Open the Mail app, even if you never use it. The setting lives there, and Mail has to run once before it appears.
2. Go to Mail > Settings > General.
3. Set Default email reader to the app you actually use. If that’s Gmail in a browser, pick the browser.

Windows 10 and 11

1. Open Settings > Apps > Default apps.
2. Search for mailto, or scroll to Email.
3. Choose the program you use. For Gmail, choose your browser, then do the Chrome steps above.

iPhone and iPad

1. Open Settings and scroll down to the mail app you use: Gmail, Outlook, Spark, whichever.
2. Tap it, tap Default Mail App, and choose it.

Android

Open Settings > Apps > Default apps > Email and choose your mail app. The wording shifts a little between phone makers, but it’s always under Default apps.

The no-settings fix

Right-click the link, or press and hold on a phone, choose Copy email address, and paste it into a new message. The address is usually printed right there on the page as well.

Takeaways

• An email link only works as well as the visitor’s computer is set up. Most are. Some aren’t, and those people will blame the site.
• Write the address out as text next to the link so it can be copied no matter what. Most sites already do this; it’s worth checking yours.
• Better still, use a contact form. The form sends from the website, so it works regardless of the visitor’s setup, and it keeps your address off the page where spam harvesters find it.
• If a visitor tells you the link is broken, send them here.

Need a hand?

Writing the address out or adding a contact form is a ten-minute job, and it’s covered under every Cinch support plan. If you’d rather never think about mailto links again, see the plans →