Large mailto links do not open in Chrome

Question

I have a javascript script where I dynamically change the href attribute and trigger the click event.

var href = 'mailto:custom@outlook.com?subject=TestSubject&body=aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa';
var element = document.getElementById('mail-link');
element.setAttribute('href', href);
element.click();

<a href="#" id="mail-link" style="display: none;"></a>

However, the above script appears to do nothing in Google Chrome. On the other hand, it works perfectly fine on Mozilla Firefox where the result is that it opens the default mail client with the appropriate mail recipient, subject and body.

I have also noticed that if I change the href to a shorter value, then Google Chrome manages to open the mail client.

var href = 'mailto:custom@outlook.com?subject=TestSubject&body=aaaaaaaa';

Is it possible to have Google Chrome open large mailto links?

Tested on Windows 10. Chrome do not open "mailto" strings longer thann 2042 characters, while Firefox does not have this limitation. — matteogll, Aug 27 '21 at 07:17
This question has been posed several times on StackOverflow over the years without an acceptable answer. Server-side solution may be feasible for everyone. I posted a solution here https://stackoverflow.com/a/74778578/3297640 — Vijay Jagdale, Dec 12 '22 at 23:56

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited Oct 07 '21 at 13:21

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I'm pretty sure that body text is not intended to be the first field of the message. Its intended for short text messages, not long bodies that you're used to seeing like... long bodies of text.

Check this out.

edited Oct 07 '21 at 13:21

Community

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answered Sep 21 '20 at 16:03

QT Ray

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It is working for `Mozilla Firefox` though – vchan Sep 21 '20 at 17:41
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I would say look at this https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37871312/mailto-not-working-with-large-body-content I bet FireFox just has a higher character count limit than Chrome. But I'm not the one testing it. Check your version compared to what other people are answering. I'm also curious about IE. Is it also working in Edge, since it's using Chromium... I'd bet it would fail too. – QT Ray Sep 21 '20 at 18:55

figure8 · Answer 2 · 2020-09-21T19:59:26.597

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Have a look at how to get around chrome mailto maxlength limit. A suggestion there was to simulate a mail client to omit the issue.

edited Sep 21 '20 at 19:59

answered Sep 21 '20 at 16:21

figure8

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answers with just a link don't work well. try including relevant code blocks and explanations for better response from the question poster. – Jay Sep 21 '20 at 17:12
I don't see any mention of "mail" on that page. – Barmar Sep 21 '20 at 18:54

Large mailto links do not open in Chrome

2 Answers2