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Geeky/Programming

Firefox 3 and Google Apps Email – Default mailto Handling

Firefox 3 has a cool new feature to allow you set default mailto handlers from the preferences. Here is how you can use Google Apps (GAFYD) as the default mailto handler.

1. In Firefox’s address bar, copy and paste the following and hit enter:
about:config

2. Click “I’ll be careful, I promise!� when the warning appears

3. In the “Filter:� field, copy and paste:
gecko.handlerService.allowRegisterFromDifferentHost

4. Double click the found result to change the boolean value from false to true

5. In the address bar, copy and paste the following:
javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler(“mailto”,”https://mail.google.com/a/yourdomain.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s”,”Google Apps”)

6. Replace “yourdomain.com” with your own Google Apps hosted domain and hit enter

7. Click “Add Application� when it asks you a question

8. go to Edit > Preferences > Applications > mailto

9. Choose “Use Google Apps�

Steve Novoselac's avatar

By Steve Novoselac

Director of Digital Technology @TrekBikes, Father, Musician, Cyclist, Homebrewer

28 replies on “Firefox 3 and Google Apps Email – Default mailto Handling”

This worked for me.

The I had to fix the quotes — it seemed that this blog entry has converted to the fancy quotes and not the plain-old standard ASCII ones required for step 5.

Also, instead of Edit – Preferences it was Tools – Options on my copy of FF3 for step 8.

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I had issues probably because I had tried “Better Gmail 2” first. I had to change network.protocol-hndler.expose.mailto and network.protocol-handler.external.mailto before I got the Add Application confirmation, But now it works….

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Please excuse me as I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer regarding tech issues….. the “address bar” in step 5…would that be the application address bar under firefox options vs the browser address bar?

Thanks!

Craig

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Thanks, Anthony

I did have some challenges with the java code and finally determined that the quotes (“) needed to be apostrophes (‘). Then, after everything worked ok with my desktop, I found another setting change that was necessary to make in the about:config file. This was a great learning experience for me. I had so much fun, I blogged about it with my own set of instructions (smile). As much as anything to make sure I don’t forget what I did.

http://networksboise.wordpress.com/2009/05/03/setting-google-apps-as-default-mailer-in-firefox-3/

Thanks!

Craig

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Now I just want to know if there is a way to make this automatically open in a new window (like pressing shift-C in gmail).

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I also had to change network.protocol-hndler.expose.mailto and network.protocol-handler.external.mailto before I got the Add Application confirmation, but it worked after that

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I couldn't make out the character after the mailto and before the url and put a colon, which doesn't work. How do I edit the ProtocolHandler or delete it and redo it?

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