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How do I change which app handles mailto: without Mail.app?

If I want to change which app handles mailto: links, Apple says I have to use Mail.app. However Mail.app does not allow me to get to the preferences unless I setup Mail.app.


This is a real Catch-22! I can't use Mail.app with my email (nor do I want to), but then I'm forced to set it up in order to NOT use it (which I can't).


How do I change which app handles mailto: without Mail.app?

Posted on Dec 29, 2019 9:50 PM

Reply
10 replies

Jan 21, 2020 2:32 PM in response to LD150

@peter_watt, you're right, it's not a bug, it's really bad design. The Mail UI could at least allow you to change things like the default mail handler w/o requiring the user to actually setup a mail account, which they are then going to immediately remove once they've made the change? That's ridiculous. I'd prefer a command line way to do it, but at least make the UI usable in the default case. This is, in fact, so ridiculous that MS offers a tool to workaround this issue https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/troubleshoot/outlook-for-mac/useful-tools#setdefaultmailapp Why not offer a clean (and default usable) solution instead?

How do I change which app handles mailto: without Mail.app?

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