Three ways to set or switch your default mail client
Sarah sounds off 
in the uk.comp.sys.mac Usenet group:
Could someone please explain to me (if, indeed, it can be explained) why one has to go through the palaver of setting up one’s email account in Mail.app in order to be able to change the global email preference to the application of one’s choice?
Okay, I can see it from one pov, in that a new user, getting hold of a Mac for the first time, will set up Mail.app and then change to something else if their needs change but, as a ’seasoned’ user, I resent having to wait 10-15 minutes (and that really is the total amount of time it takes) whilst it queries my ISP’s servers.
I’ve always felt there should be an (additional) option to do this in the Sys Prefs somewhere, though I’m damned if I know where, maybe as a separate section?
Fair enough. It is the kind of propriety behaviour that one expects from another large software company.
Still, utilities exist that can change the default email client without opening Mail.app at all. They also allow users to set a different default email client quickly, which is useful if you need to switch from one client to another. Or if you just like to. (There are people like that.)
IC-Switch is a menubar-based solution which provides a drop-down menu for setting a default email client, Web browser or news reader in one click:
It’s a bit long in the tooth (last update 2003) but gets the job done.
More Internet is a donation-ware System Preferences pane that manages a large number of helper apps for various internet protocols, including “mailto:” links:
Webmailer is another Preferences pane. Designed to set a webmail service like Gmail or Yahoo! or whatever as the default client, it also lists Desktop clients and allows one of these to be set as the default:
Webmailer is freeware.
It’s not the easiest of work-arounds. You need to find, download and set up some of these options, but during that time you get space to think carefully about whether you really want to use some other email client. Some people believe that Mail.app’s few peccadilloes are far outweighed by its many charms.
Tags: Apple Mail, Apple Mail Tips, default email client, mail.app, pluginsRelated posts
January 10th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Quote: why one has to go through the palaver of setting up one’s email account in Mail.app in order to be able to change the global email preference to the application of one’s choice
The solution should be that the email application of choice should be able to set the preference. As far as I know all stand alone apps can do just that.
January 10th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
Sure. As I say, it’s a fair enough complaint.
January 11th, 2007 at 4:33 am
Or you could just launch the Application that you want to be your default, and USUALLY it will ask you if you want it set as the default (Thunderbird and Firefox among others do this)
January 11th, 2007 at 4:37 am
I personally like RCDefaultApp (http://www.rubicode.com/Software/RCDefaultApp/) - it’s a preference pane as well…but it allows you to set all kinds of default application handling (freeware as well)
January 11th, 2007 at 8:16 am
Nathan, thanks for pointing that out. I missed that one.
June 24th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
[...] Mac users who want to use Gmail (or some other webmail service) as their default email app rather than Mail.app already have at least three ways of doing it. [...]