Mailto fix for Gmail

I love Google. Well, in a nerdy kind-of way. I love search, Chrome, Android, Gmail, Docs, Calendar, Goggles, flight search, Wallet, etc. If it says Google, there is a good chance that I will like the product.

So when on my Windows machine at work (no, we have not upgraded to chrome OS yet), it is handy to be able to click an email address link (i.e. a mailto: link) and have a browser with my Gmail pop up instead of my Outlook popping up. Notice that this will switch to a web browser Gmail for all mailto links whether they are on the web, or in an email inside Outlook.

Two ways to skin the cat: 1) You can either download the Gmail Notifier application and set the default there (look at this Gmail help) , or 2) (even better) you can simply edit one key in the registry yourself. Simply open your favorite text editor (e.g. TextPad), copy the following 3 lines (including quotes and backslashes), and save the file with a .reg extension, e.g. Gmail.reg. Then simply execute the file. You can also manual update the registry using RegEdit, but that is a tad more error prone. Please note that you need to replace USERNAME with your own Windows login name.

For Windows XP, use:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\mailto\shell\open\command]
@="\"C:\\Documents and Settings\\USERNAME\\Local Settings\\Application Data\\Google\\Chrome\\Application\\chrome.exe\" https://mail.google.com/mail?extsrc=mailto&url=%1"

For Windows 7, use:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\mailto\shell\open\command]
@="\"C:\\Users\\USERNAME\\AppData\\Local\\Google\\Chrome\\Application\\chrome.exe\" https://mail.google.com/mail?extsrc=mailto&url=%1"

Now, any email (mailto) link you click on will open up your gmail web.
Nifty.