Setting the Default Email Client  in Firefox

Opening a mail client, be that Thunderbird or some other email client, can take place either from within integrated KDE applications and "KDE-aware" applictions, or applications like Firefox which do not check KDE's preference settings. In the latter case like Firefox, one must set those preferences directly in the application.

For both cases, the first step is to determine where in your Linux filesystem, the desired mail client resides. You will probably want to write this down since in some cases a Modal window or dialog box will be open, sometimes preventing actions to find the Full Path you need.

In my case, from a terminal window, I ran "type kmail" (without the quotes), though you might wish to enter "type thunderbird".

Answer was: /usr/bin/kmail

Note: "whereis kmail" (or whereis thunderbird) will return more answers than just the location of the executable "program".

Setting Firefox's email client

These steps will allow opening your desired email client when operating in Firefox and using its menus, or when activating an email link on a Firefox page:

1. In Firefox's Location (URL) Bar, enter "about:config" and then press <enter> or click "Go".

2. With the cursor in the body of the resulting page, right-click the mouse.

3. From the pop-up menu, select "New".

4. From the next pop-up menu, select "String".

5. In the pop-up dialog box "Enter preference name", enter "network.protocol-handler.app.mailto" (without quotes), and click "OK" (You might wish to cut-and-paste that phrase to ensure correct spelling).

6. In the pop-up dialog box "? network.protocol-handler.app.mailto", enter "/usr/bin/kmail" without quotes [or the actual filesystem location of your desired email client, if you are not using kmail] and click "OK". This should be the Full Path of the program, i.e. "/user/bin/kmail", not just the path "/usr/bin".

In my case the line entered looked like this.........

network.protocol-handler.app.mailto /usr/bin/kmail

Without restarting Firefox, you can test by opening or switching to another tab. from the Firefox top menu select, "File -> Send Link". Your desired email client should open.

If that doesn't happen, redo your steps, ensuring the spelling of your entries is correct, and ensure the actual Full Path of your desired mail client is entered.

Credit where it is due:  This article was copied, almost verbatim from a post on Xandros Forums, submitted by sqlpython.

For instructions on how to set the system-wide default email client, see this wiki article:  How to set default web browser, email client, etc