Mail opens Gmail links in browser on macOS Catalina

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Level 10

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Mail opens Gmail links in browser on macOS Catalina

My wife has Catalina on a 2015 MacBook Pro. I shared with her someone's Gmail link to compose a message to with Mac OS Mail. Somehow, magically when she clicked on the link in Mail, it automatically assumed we would want to compose the message on Gmail's website. How do you force Mail to use links @gmail.com directly within Mail, and not use a web browser to open the Gmail website?

Posted on Jan 31, 2026 6:03 PM

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Answer 1

John Galt

Level 10

155,918 points

Jan 31, 2026 8:16 PM in response to a brody

The first thing I'd check is the link itself to verify it is what you expect it to be. Did you copy and paste it into something readable — something that doesn't "helpfully" mess with it? BBEdit, TextEdit, etc won't do that. Notes might.

A clickable mail link in an email message would be mailto:xyz@gmail.com (for example) which ought to summon your chosen default email app (Mail, presumably).

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