I'd like to invoke a mailto link from JavaScript - that is I'd like a method that allows me to open the email client on the users PC, exactly as if they had clicked on a normal mailto link.
How can I do this?
6 Answers
You can use window.location.href here, like this:
window.location.href = "mailto:[email protected]";
6 Comments
Max
and how would I append a body? mailto:[email protected]?body=myBody and mailto:[email protected]&myBody do not work for me...
Adi
@jipiboily, can you please explain more? Which browser have you tried and it didn't work?
jipiboily
@Adnan from what I remember it doesn't work with Opera and maybe more browsers. Depending on your needs, you might be able to workaround that problem.
Nick Craver
@Rolf I just tested in the latest chrome stable, still working.
cssyphus
Max, you have likely figured this out, but for future readers:
window.location.href = 'mailto:[email protected]&subject=Hello there&body=This is the body';. Not ? and not &, just & |
You can avoid the blank page issue discussed above by instead using .click() with a link on the page:
document.getElementById('mymailto').click();
...
<a href="mailto:...." id="mymailto" style="display:none"></a>
1 Comment
Yoda
I tried this: ` function Call(){ document.getElementById('mymailto').click(); } <a href="tel:+48123456" id="mymailto" style="display:none"></a>` and the new tab still opens.
the working answer for me, tested in chrome, IE and firefox together with outlook was this
window.location.href = 'mailto:[email protected]?subject=Hello there&body=This is the body';
%0d%0a is the new line symbol of the email body in a mailto link
%20 is the space symbol that should be used, but it worked for me as well with normal space
Comments
Better to use
window.open('mailto:[email protected]?subject=sub&body=this is body')
If we use window.location.href chrome browser is having error in network tab with Provisional headers are shown
Upgrade-Insecure-Requests: 1
Comments
Actually, there is a possibillity to avoid the empty page.
I found out, you can simply insert an iframe with the mailto link into the dom. This works on current Firefox/Chrome and IE (also IE will display a short confirm dialog).
Using jQuery, I got this:
var initMailtoButton = function()
{
var iframe = $('<iframe id="mailtoFrame" src="mailto:[email protected]" width="1" height="1" border="0" frameborder="0"></iframe>');
var button = $('#mailtoMessageSend');
if (button.length > 0) {
button.click(function(){
// create the iframe
$('body').append(iframe);
//remove the iframe, we don't need it any more
window.setTimeout(function(){
iframe.remove();
}, 500);
});
}
}
Comments
This is an old question, but I combined several Stack Overflows to come up with this function:
//this.MailTo is an array of Email addresses
//this.MailSubject is a free text (unsafe) Subject text input
//this.MailBody is a free text (unsafe) Body input (textarea)
//SpawnMail will URL encode /n, ", and ', append an anchor element with the mailto, and click it to spawn the mail in the users default mail program
SpawnMail: function(){
$("#MyMailTo").remove();
var MailList="";
for(i in this.MailTo)
MailList+=this.MailTo[i]+";";
var NewSubject=this.MailSubject.replace(/\n/g, "%0d%0a");
NewSubject=NewSubject.replace(/"/g, "%22");
NewSubject=NewSubject.replace(/'/g, "%27");
var NewBody=this.MailBody.replace(/\n/g, "%0d%0a");
NewBody=NewBody.replace(/"/g, "%22");
NewBody=NewBody.replace(/'/g, "%27");
$("#mainNavBar").after("<a id='MyMailTo' style='display:none;' href='mailto:"+MailList+"?subject="+NewSubject+"&body="+NewBody+"'> </a>");
document.getElementById('MyMailTo').click();
}
The cool part about this (and how I plan to use it) is I can put this in a loop and split out individual messages to everyone in the array or keep everyone together (which is what this function currently does). Anyway thanks for the tip @Toskan
FOLLOW-UP - Please note the new HTML5 standard does not allow looping mailto (or other pop-up related js) without a "required user gesture". Cool article here: https://github.com/WICG/interventions/issues/12 So you can't use this to mass generate individual e-mails, but it does work well with sending to many in it's current design.
<button onclick="window.open('mailto:KingRider<[email protected]>');">Contact me</button>