First of all, what you are describing are what are called “MailTo:” links. These are specialized HTML commands that link directly to an e-mail address.

To create a link that sends an e-mail to somebody, use the HTML mailto: tag. Your code will look like this: ...

What alternative is there to the construct to accept more than 200 characters? I seem to have bumped into the string length limit of 256 characters.quote: ...

A post on the Official Gmail Blog has announced that Google Chrome and Chrome OS users can now automatically open mailto links within Gmail, all thanks to HTML5. Content handlers are the web’s ...

Now, if you click a mailto: link—try the tips link on Lifehacker's sidebar—Firefox 3 will ask which application you want to use. Choose Gmail, and select "Remember my choice for mailto links ...

But the Mailto: extension is really the simplest to use: click to install, then select from one of the five webmail services—Fastmail, Gmail, Hotmail/Windows Live Mail, Yahoo mail, or Zoho mail.

Do you want to add a mailto link to your Outlook signature? We show you how to do that using the Insert Hyperlink option.