React open mailto E-Mail client onClick with body from textarea

Question

This sounds like it must have been asked before but I could only find how to do this in react native but I could not find how it's done in normal react for web. Preferably not with an a tag or Link tag that needs to be styled.

Here some code to illustrate what I want to do:

const onClickMailtoHandler = () => {
    //TODO: open default e-mail client e.g. via mailto link with text from (state) variable as body
}

<Button onClick={onClickMailtoHandler}>Send E-Mail</Button>

Here is how to do a mailto link in HTML:

<a href="mailto:[email protected]?body=My custom mail body">E-Mail to Max Mustermann</a>

Speedway

It is semantically correct to use an a-tag (<a />). Is there an issue with applying some style to that element (as opposed to the style that is likely applied to the underlying button element)? – Levasseur

Are you asking how to open mailTo programmatically (#21462089) or to get the text value from the TextArea? – Spearhead

@Spearhead yes I kind of ended up doing that just with window.location. I would approve this as answer if you submit it as such :) – Speedway

Links to other answers aren't really answers, but you can certainly show your appreciation by upvoting the linked answer. – Levasseur

Answer 1

I ended up creating a component similar to what @GitGitBoom suggested in the comments.

Here for future Seekers:

import React from "react";
import { Link } from "react-router-dom";

const ButtonMailto = ({ mailto, label }) => {
    return (
        <Link
            to='#'
            onClick={(e) => {
                window.location.href = mailto;
                e.preventDefault();
            }}
        >
            {label}
        </Link>
    );
};

export default ButtonMailto;

Use it like this:

<ButtonMailto label="Write me an E-Mail" mailto="mailto:[email protected]" />

Speedway

Using this with react, nextJs & TS, I get an error: Type 'string' is not assignable to type 'Location'. Changing window.location to window.location.href works. – Edict

thanks. seems to be how it should be used. changed in code answer also. – Speedway

Answer 2

I've used the following method for opening the default mail client when button is clicked:

<button onClick={() => window.location = 'mailto:[email protected]'}>Contact Me</button>

Accouter

Using this with react, nextJs & TS, I get an error: Type 'string' is not assignable to type 'Location'. Changing window.location to window.location.href works. – Edict

This is a perfect solution. – Gorgias

Answer 3

Try this

<Link to='javascript:void(0)'
      onClick={() => window.location = 'mailto:[email protected]'}>
  Contact Me
</Link>

<OtherElement onClick={() => window.location = 'mailto:[email protected]'}>
  Contact Me
</OtherElement>

Blanka

any idea on typings? Type 'string' is not assignable to type 'Location' – Picador

@Picador check this answer https://mcmap.net/q/93878/-set-window-location-with-typescript ! – Factious

Answer 4

make any element in jsx click mail write this =

<div onClick={(e) => {window.location.href ='mailto:[email protected]';}}>any thing here </div>

just try it.

Glister

Answer 5

Based on solution of @CodingYourLife and main topic of this problem i made my version of component based on two of my needs. I combined react-router-dom behavior with native behavior of <A> html tag.

---

Files of Link component

• index.tsx
• types.ts
• styles.ts

index.tsx (below)

import * as React from 'react';

import Typography from '@material-ui/core/Typography';

import { withStyles } from '@material-ui/core';

import { Link as RouterLink } from 'react-router-dom';

import styles from './styles';

import { IProps } from './types';

/**
 * Just a wrapper in order to style properly
 *
 * - router link
 * - native html <a> link
*/
class Link extends React.PureComponent<IProps> {
    render(): JSX.Element {
        const {
            classes,
            href,
            children,
            ...routerLinkProps
        } = this.props;

        if (typeof href === 'string') {
            return (
                <a href={href}>
                    <Typography
                        className={classes.value}
                    >
                        {children}
                    </Typography>
                </a>
            );
        }

        return (
            <RouterLink
                to={'#'} // for <a> link default value because it's required by its lib
                {...routerLinkProps}
            >
                <Typography
                    className={classes.value}
                >
                    {children}
                </Typography>
            </RouterLink>
        );
    }
}

export default withStyles(styles)(Link);

styles.ts (below)

import { Theme, createStyles } from '@material-ui/core';

export default (theme: Theme): ReturnType<typeof createStyles> => createStyles({
    value: {
        display: 'inline-block',
        color: theme.palette.secondary.main,
        fontWeight: 500,

        '&:hover': {
            textDecoration: 'underline',
        },
    },
});

types.ts (below)

import {
    WithStyles,
} from '@material-ui/core';

import { LinkProps } from 'react-router-dom';

import styles from './styles';

export type IProps = WithStyles<typeof styles> & Partial<LinkProps> & {
    href?: string;
};

Used library: material-ui

Patriciate

Answer 6

I achieved this in NextJS 14 by passing the attribute as={Link} to the ListGroup component and the href attribute as href='mailto:[email protected]'

import Link from next/link
import ListGroup from "react-bootstrap/ListGroup";

    <ListGroup.Item as={Link} href='mailto:[email protected]' className={styles.listGroupItem}>
                  [email protected]
                </ListGroup.Item>

Acknowledgment