Can I set subject/content of email using mailto:?

Question

Is it possible to set the subject/content of email when I use mailto:?

Answer 1

Note that it is not possible to use HTML in the message body, according to RFC 2368:

The special hname "body" indicates that the associated hvalue is the body of the message. The "body" hname should contain the content for the first text/plain body part of the message. The mailto URL is primarily intended for generation of short text messages that are actually the content of automatic processing (such as "subscribe" messages for mailing lists), not general MIME bodies.

Credit: https://stackoverflow.com/a/13415988/1835519

Answer 2

The mailto: URL scheme is defined in RFC 2368. Also, the convention for encoding information into URLs and URIs is defined in RFC 1738 and then RFC 3986. These prescribe how to include the body and subject headers into a URL (URI):

mailto:[e-mail]?subject=current-issue&body=send%20current-issue

Specifically, you must percent-encode the email address, subject, and body and put them into the format above. Percent-encoded text is legal for use in HTML, however this URL must be entity encoded for use in an href attribute, according to the HTML4 standard:

<a href="mailto:[e-mail]?subject=current-issue&amp;body=send%20current-issue">Send email</a>

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And most generally, here is a simple PHP script that encodes per the above.

<?php
$encodedTo = rawurlencode($message->to);
$encodedSubject = rawurlencode($message->subject);
$encodedBody = rawurlencode($message->body);
$uri = "mailto:$encodedTo&subject=$encodedSubject&body=$encodedBody";
$encodedUri = htmlspecialchars($uri);
echo "<a href=\"$encodedUri\">Send email</a>";
?>

Answer 3

Yes, look all tips and tricks with mailto: http://www.angelfire.com/dc/html-webmaster/mailto.htm

mailto subject example:

<a href="mailto:[e-mail]?subject=free chocolate">example</a>

mailto with content:

<a href="mailto:?subject=look at this website&body=Hi,I found this website
and thought you might like it http://www.geocities.com/wowhtml/">tell a friend</a>

As alluded to in the comments, both subject and body must be escaped properly. Use encodeURIComponent(subject) on each, rather than hand-coding for specific cases (like %0A for line breaks).

Answer 4

You can add subject added to the mailto command using either one of the following ways. Add ?subject out mailto to the mailto tag.

<a href="mailto:[e-mail]?subject=testing out mailto">First Example</a>

We can also add text into the body of the message by adding &body to the end of the tag as shown in the below example.

 <a href="mailto:[e-mail]?subject=testing out mailto&body=Just testing">Second Example</a>

In addition to body, a user may also type &cc or &bcc to fill out the CC and BCC fields.

<a href="mailto:[e-mail]?subject=testing out mailto&body=Just testing&cc=[e-mail]&bcc=[e-mail]">Third
    Example</a>

How to add subject to mailto tag

Answer 5

mailto:[e-mail]?subject=Your+subject

Answer 6

I split it into separate lines to make it a little more readable.

<a href="

    mailto:[e-mail]

    ?subject=My+great+email+to+you

    &body=This+is+an+awesome+email

    &cc=[e-mail]

    &bcc=[e-mail]

">Click here to send email!</a>