adding hotmail (or other services) for mailto links in firefox

Firefox gives you an option for how you want to handle mailto links. The problem is, by default, you are only given options for two web services: yahoo and gmail.

If you’d like to use another service, you’ll have to add it manually. This, as it turns out, is no big deal. The steps below will show you how to add Hotmail as an option for mailto links in Firefox:

Open another tab or window, and in the address bar type: about:config. In the screen that appears, click the button acknowledging that you’ll “be careful”.

Now, in the text box alongside “Filter:” type in gecko, and then double-click the first result that reads “gecko.handlerService.allowRegisterFromDifferentHost” so that it is set to “true” on the right.

Close the about:config window or tab and open a fresh one.

From there copy and paste the following into the address bar (inserting javascript into the address bar has been disabled in newer version of Firefox, instead you must hit ctrl+shift+k and use the box that appears), then hit the enter key:

[text]javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler("mailto","http://hotmail.msn.com/secure/start?action=compose&to=%s","Hotmail")[/text]

Firefox will ask for confirmation, so go ahead and click the button that reads “Add Application”.

That’s all there is to it. Now mailto links will give you the option to use Hotmail.

[If you have already selected a default service, then you may not see the above prompt. You’ll need to adjust your Firefox Preferences. Under the Applications tab set mailto links to “Always ask”.]

7 Responses

  1. Robin Öberg says:

    It ain’t working… :(

  2. Robin: What version of Firefox are you running? Oh, and nice website.

    • Q says:

      It doesn’t work for me either, using Firefox 8. Pasting the link into the address bar has no affect and doesn’t bring up the option to add Hotmail. What am I doing wrong?!

  3. regit24 says:

    doesn’t work for me either (Firefox 10.0)

  4. babychild2 says:

    Thanks! It never worked for me before when I was cutting and pasting it to the address bar, but the CTRL SHIFT K did work. At first I didn’t think it was, but at the top of the screen Firefox was asking me if I wanted to let the website STORE DATA, i said NOT NOW. Then I was given the option to ADD APPLICATION to hotmail.

  5. www.ebay.com says:

    I like the valuable info you provide in your articles. I’ll bookmark your blog and check again here regularly. I’m quite certain I’ll learn a lot of new stuff right here! Good luck for the next!

  6. Michael says:

    Nov. 2014
    These instructions don’t work for me.
    I’m running Win 8.1 on Dell Inspiron laptop.
    I was very careful and repeated the steps several times.
    I just installed Firefox the other day and still can’t use live.com.

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