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<h2 id="examples">Examples</h2> <p>"mailto" can be used within an <a href="/facts/HTML/sSc3fT78">HTML</a> document to generate a link for sending email: </p> <a href="mailto:someone@example.com">Send email</a> <p>Clicking on the hyperlink automatically opens the default email client, with the destination email address pre-filled. </p><p>It is possible to specify initial values for headers (e.g. subject, cc, etc.) and message body in the URL. Blanks, carriage returns, and linefeeds cannot be directly embedded but must be <a href="/facts/Percent-encoding/zprLw5se">percent-encoded</a>:<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:4" href="#fn:4"><sup>4</sup></a> </p> <a href="mailto:someone@example.com?subject=This%20is%20the%20subject&cc=someone_else@example.com&body=This%20is%20the%20body">Send email</a> <p>Multiple addresses can be specified:<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:5" href="#fn:5"><sup>5</sup></a> </p> <a href="mailto:someone@example.com,someoneelse@example.com">Send email</a> <p>The address can be omitted: </p> <a href="mailto:?subject=mailto%20with%20examples&body=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMailto">Share this knowledge...</a> <p>Only the initial header must use a question mark (?) prepended. All subsequent headers require an ampersand (&). Should this not be the case, the scheme will not properly copy over the headers to the email client.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:6" href="#fn:6"><sup>6</sup></a> </p><h2 id="security-and-privacy">Security and privacy</h2> <p class="note">See also: <a href="/facts/Address_munging/KY7zUzHp">Address munging</a></p> <p>A number of security issues are mentioned in <a href="https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6068#section-7">RFC 6068</a>, one of them being robotic <a href="/facts/Address_harvesting/5BoVPxRY">address harvesting</a>. Mailto constructs are locatable within HTML pages by automated means which typically include the use of <a href="/facts/Document_Object_Model/GglE6jGx">DOM</a> constructs or <a href="/facts/Regular_expression/KFL3veHX">regular expressions</a>. Addresses harvested by such means are liable to be added to <a href="/facts/E-mail_spam/ARJr6Aem">spammers</a>' mass-mailing lists and thus to receive large amounts of unwanted mail. </p><p>While methods exist to "harden" mailto links against harvesting—<a href="/facts/Address_munging/KY7zUzHp">address munging</a> and <a href="/facts/JavaScript/XhhIIEsl">JavaScript</a>-based address <a href="/facts/Obfuscation_(software)/703yhvVq">obfuscation</a> among them—these protections can be circumvented by sufficiently sophisticated harvesting robots. Other techniques, like walling the address behind a <a href="/facts/CAPTCHA/3sIyVjTk">CAPTCHA</a> or similar "humanity check", provide security on par with that available for other contact methods, most notably <a href="/facts/Form_(HTML)/9Ivp2peo">web forms</a>, which experience similar challenges with preventing spam. </p> <h2 id="references">References</h2> <ol> <li id="fn:1"><p>Berners-Lee, T.; Masinter, Larry; McCahill, M. (December 1994). "Uniform Resource Locators (URL)". Retrieved 11 September 2021. <a href="https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1738" target="_blank">https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1738</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:2"><p>Hoffman, Paul; Masinter, Larry; Zawinski, Jamie (July 1998). "The mailto URL scheme". Retrieved 26 September 2015. <a href="/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski" target="_blank">/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:3"><p>Duerst, Martin; Masinter, Larry; Zawinski, Jamie (October 2010). "The 'mailto' URI Scheme". Retrieved 26 September 2015. <a href="/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski" target="_blank">/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski</a> <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:4"><p>"Creating hyperlinks § E-mail links". MDN Web Docs. Retrieved 2019-09-30. <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/HTML/Introduction_to_HTML/Creating_hyperlinks" target="_blank">https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/HTML/Introduction_to_HTML/Creating_hyperlinks</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:5"><p>Duerst, Martin; Masinter, Larry; Zawinski, Jamie (October 2010). "The 'mailto' URI Scheme". Retrieved 26 September 2015. <a href="/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski" target="_blank">/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski</a> <a href="#fnref:5" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:6"><p>"RFC 6068". IETF Datatracker. <a href="https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6068#section-6.1" target="_blank">https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6068#section-6.1</a> <a href="#fnref:6" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> </ol>