Install gmail as default mail client windows 7

You may unsubscribe from these communications at any time. For more information, check out our privacy policy. Written by Pamela Vaughan. HubSpot also recommends upgrading your email signature using our free Email Signature Generator. Fellow Gmail users For instance, my computer always used to try opening up Outlook, even though I'm a Gmailer. So annoying. If you want to learn how to create these " mailto " links for your own marketing, this blog post walks you through exactly how to do it.

Suffer no more. Here's how to fix it so your preferred browser uses Gmail as its default email client for mailto links. Just click the jump-to link to find instructions for your browser of choice.

Before you can actually set Gmail as your default email client, you need to allow Gmail to ask you permission. To do so, open a window of your Chrome browser and click the three-dots icon next to the URL address bar. Then click "Settings," second from the bottom. In the Settings tab that appears in your Chrome browser, scroll down to the bottom and click "Advanced. In the first group that appears, "Privacy and security," click "Content settings" second from the bottom.

In the next group of options that appears, find the "Handlers" setting near the bottom of the list. It'll look like this:. Click this setting and you'll see at least one horizontal switch where you can allow any website you visit to ask you if it can become Chrome's default "handler.

If it's already switched on, switch it off and on again -- this can prompt Gmail to re-ask you to become your default handler, if you've been asked before and want to change your answer. Once your Ask protocol has been switched on for default handlers, open Gmail in a new tab and make sure you're signed in. At the end of your URL's address bar, you'll see a new icon that looks like two gray diamonds intertwined with each other. Click this icon and you'll see the following dropdown menu:.

Click "Allow" in response to the question Chrome asks you, as shown above, and then hit Done. You'll officially have all "mailto:" links open in Gmail if they come from your Chrome browser. Note: If you're still having trouble for example, your "Protocol handlers" window appears blank with no options , try installing Google's Mailto Extension for Chrome instead.

Launch Firefox and look to the upper-righthand corner of your browser for an icon consisting of three horizontal lines on top of one another. Click this icon and a dropdown menu of 11 different browser settings will appear. Select the "Preferences" icon from this dropdown menu, and you'll see a full page of settings filed under a "General" tab to the lefthand side. Staying on the General settings page, scroll down until you see the "Applications" section. Under the "Applications" settings of Firefox, you might see a list of previously used applications depending on how you've used Firefox.

Look for the "mailto" application in the lefthand column if you don't see it listed, search for it in the "Applications" search bar above the list. In the righthand column of the applications list, click on the "mailto" row and select "Use Gmail. No need to save your settings -- Firefox does this automatically.

Note: You also might see the option to "Use Chrome" if you also have the Chrome browser downloaded on your computer. If you see both Chrome and Gmail as default options, stick with Gmail. If not, verify that you're signed into Gmail and load these settings again. If all you see is the option to use Chrome, select this as your default email client. There's actually no native setting in Internet Explorer to set Gmail as your default email client. Then go into your browser to set Gmail as the default there, as well, by following the steps below.

Then follow the guide for your browser to finish the setup. To use Gmail on Linux, you have to install a separate application. You can use the Desktop Webmail app to open Gmail in Linux by default, though the app works with other email clients, such as Hotmail, Yahoo and Zoho.

Check out our best VPN services for Linux list for our top recommendations. Setting Gmail as your default email client in Google Chrome requires a few steps that you may not be that familiar with.

Just follow these steps to make Gmail the default email in Chrome. First, open Chrome and click on the three-dots menu icon in the top-right corner of the screen. Next time you open Gmail in Chrome, a diamond icon will appear in the address bar at the top right. Click on the diamond icon to open a dialog box where Gmail will ask to become default.

Now every time you click on a mailto link in Chrome, it will open in Gmail. Luckily, the code is available on GitHub , so you could try to update the extension yourself, if you have the know-how. The download for the old Safari version is at the bottom of the GitHub page.

When you first click on a mailto link in Mozilla Firefox , it will ask you which client you want to handle your email address links. To set Gmail as your default email client, click on the hamburger menu icon in the top-right corner, next to the address bar.

Feel free to ask any questions you may have about the steps in this guide. Thank you for reading. This is actually a separate screen not part of the handlers option. Now that you have done the first two steps open Gmail as normal and you will see the diamond shape, when you click on the diamond shape you can then choose gmail as your default email. I tried it earlier today as I was having problems with Outlook and after following the steps it worked for me.

Ben Looking for this for 10 years. It works well. It is going to save me a lot of time. Thank you. Affixa works like a charm! Thanks Mate, you solved a problem that frustrated me for years.

Excellent, thank you for these instructions! Once I checked the handlers setting, I opened a new Chrome tab and navigated to a fresh mail. The double diamond appeared and I clicked on it. Now my mailto: links open up a tab to compose my email in Gmail. My separate Google Business account also using the Gmail client in a second Chrome tab did NOT reveal these diamonds, and as such, I cannot set my business Gmail address as the default mail handler.

Anything else to check? My handler is enabled. Same here, no grey diamonds in the address bar.