Set mailto to use Gmail in Chrome

Who doesn’t use webmail these days?  I use Gmail, and I’m sure most everyone else does too.  I also use Google Chrome, yet for some reason all those ‘mailto:address@email.com’ links don’t shoot you over to Google’s Gmail, they try and open your desktop email client!  Anyways, I remembered changing this in Firefox a while back, and just now decided it was time to change it in Chrome.  I found several articles online telling me to download and install GMail Notifier, which constantly runs and notifies you on your desktop of any new emails.  I didn’t want to download and install anything, much less something that’s going to constantly run.

NOTE: The following requires you to edit your registry

 

1. Open your registry editor: In Vista, goto the Start Menu and type ‘regedit’. (XP users type ‘regedit’ in Run)
2. Goto HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\mailto\shell\open\command
3. There should be a ‘(Default)’ variable of type ‘REG_EXPAND_SZ’.  Right-click on it and select ‘Modify…’
4. Copy and paste the following string into the value:

C:\Users\Nate\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe -app=https://mail.google.com/mail?extsrc=mailto&url=%1

 

WARNING: Replace ‘Nate’ in the string with your user name

 

There you have it, now when you click on an email address while browsing a new Chrome window should open to GMail’s Compose window.