Set Gmail as default email app in Firefox 3.0
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.
With the launch of Firefox 3.0, there is now another way for Firefox users.
All you have to do is enter the following text into Firefox 3.0’s address bar and hit return:
http://javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler(”mailto”,”https://mail.google.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=***”,”GMail”)
This will register Gmail as the default handler for any mailto: link you click on in Firefox. Of course it doesn’t work for mailto: links in other apps—say, a web archive or note in Yojimbo.
To undo it, just reselect Mail.app as the default in the Applications tab of Firefox’s Preferences.
For a comprehensive solution, you still can’t beat Webmailer 
which is easy to use and free.
[Via Torben Brams ]
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June 26th, 2008 at 7:06 am
Doesn’t work for me — pasting that copy into FF3, I get sent to “javascript.com”, which serves up a “page not found” message.
I’m actually on my work PC right now — is this a Mac-only tip?
June 26th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Doesn’t work for me, and I’m a Mac user. Am I doing something wrong?
June 26th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Well, I’ve found the way to do this: when gmail is open, copy this: javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler(”mailto”,”https://mail.google.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s”,”GMail”)
and paste it into the adress bar. Firefox will answer if you want Gmail to be an app for mailto links.
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:40 am
The javascript.com issue is because there’s an http:// in front of the URL that shouldn’t be there I think (and I imagine the smart quotes don’t help either). That said it didn’t work for me on my PC either even without smart quotes.
July 9th, 2008 at 3:27 am
Webmailer is great, but if you’re only using Gmail, here’s a quick tip on how to set Gmail as your default email app:
http://www.maclife.com/article/show_me_the_gmail