Roger writes:
I have someone I e-mail a lot, and I get tired of opening and closing Outlook. Is there any way to e-mail someone without having to do that?
Hi, Roger!
If you want to e-mail a certain person quickly without opening and closing your e-mail client (such as Gmail or Outlook), there is one way you can do it, and that is by creating an e-mail shortcut for the person on your desktop. It’s easy; here’s how:
Right-click in an empty space on your desktop and on the menu that pops up, highlight New, and then left-click on Shortcut.
You are looking at a box with a blank line in it that says Create Shortcut across the top. In the blank line in the box, type mailto: and then the e-mail address of the person that you want to e-mail all of the time. In the screenshot below, I have put in this for my contact:
mailto:mytalkativefriend@blahblahblah.com
Left-click on Next.
In the next box (in the blank line), type in the name of the person that you are creating the shortcut for. (I named mine My Talkative Friend (E-Mail). Left-click on Finish.
If you are using Outlook and you are running Vista, for some reason, the icon for your shortcut will be the one for Outlook. If you would like to learn how to create your own icon for this shortcut (or any other one you may find boring or just want to change), click here. Since I didn’t change mine, here is what my talkative friend’s e-mail shortcut looks like:
And there you have it! It’s the perfect way to e-mail someone right away.
Thanks for writing, Roger!
~ Lori Cline
Very useful tip!
Thanks a lot for sharing…!
It did not work. I typed mail to:xxxxxxxx and clicked next. A screen popped up and said. “file could not be found.” I am running Windows 7 Home.
I don’t think there should be a space between “mail” and “to.” Try Mailto:xxx
I really like this tip but am wondering how to get it to open Gmail and not my outlook? I am not talking about the icon, I am talking about when I click on the shortcut, it opens my Outlook. I want to click on it and it open Gmail.
Thanks,
Evin
Evin,
If you know how to send an internet shortcut to your desktop (it’s different in different browsers), you can open your email and then send a shortcut to your desktop. Once it’s there, whenever you click on that shortcut, your Gmail will open.
Kevin
Editor, WorldStart