Share by Email Button Widget
Some readers still forward things by email - to a partner, a colleague, themselves. An Email this page button opens a new message in their own mail app with a subject line, an optional sentence of your choosing and the page address already filled in, ready for them to add a recipient.
Live preview
Under the widget on your page: Powered by A2Z Tools
Embed code
<div data-a2z-kit="share-by-email-button"></div> <script async src="https://a2z.tools/embed/kit.js" referrerpolicy="no-referrer"></script>
One small script from A2Z draws the component on your page inside its own Shadow DOM. It loads no social-network or tracking scripts and sets no cookies. How the A2Z kit works.
Works with
How it works
This is the share component with a single network, email, and its own button text. On click it builds mailto:?subject=...&body=... following RFC 6068: the subject is your subject or else the page title, and the body is your sentence, a blank line and the address - or, with no sentence, the title, a space and the address. Every value is percent-encoded, so ampersands, question marks and line breaks survive. The browser hands the link to whatever the operating system registers as the mail handler: Apple Mail, Outlook, Thunderbird, the Gmail app on Android, or a webmail site the reader has set as the handler. Because there is no recipient in the link, the reader chooses who receives it.
Method
- mailto:?subject=<subject || title>&body=<body + "\n\n" + url || title + " " + url>, each value encodeURIComponent-encoded (RFC 6068)
- Address = fixed URL || canonical || location without #hash and tracking parameters
- No recipient is pre-filled; nothing is sent until the reader presses Send in their own mail app
Worked examples
Default button on a gardening article
Inputs: No subject or body set; page title A spring garden guide
Result: mailto:?subject=A%20spring%20garden%20guide&body=A%20spring%20garden%20guide%20https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2Fblog%2Fspring-garden-guide
The title is used for the subject and starts the body, followed by the address.
With your own subject and sentence
Inputs: Subject Thought you would like this; body I found this guide useful for planning the allotment.
Result: mailto:?subject=Thought%20you%20would%20like%20this&body=I%20found%20this%20guide%20useful%20for%20planning%20the%20allotment.%0A%0Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2Fblog%2Fspring-garden-guide
%0A%0A is the blank line between your sentence and the link.
Limitations
- mailto: opens the reader's default mail app; readers who only use webmail without registering it as a handler may see nothing happen.
- Line breaks and formatting beyond plain text are not supported in a mailto: body.
- Very long subjects or bodies can be truncated by some mail programs.
Where publishers use it
- A B2B whitepaper page where readers forward the link to a manager who makes the buying decision
- A property listing with an Email this home button for couples and families comparing houses
- A local council or school notice that parents forward to each other by email rather than on social networks
- An internal knowledge-base article that staff send to new starters with a prepared subject line
Questions
Why does nothing happen for some visitors?
A mailto: link opens the program the operating system registers for email. If a visitor has never set one up - common on shared or work computers, or for people who only use webmail in a browser tab - the browser may do nothing or ask which app to use. For audiences that live in Gmail or Outlook on the web, add the Gmail and Outlook buttons from Social Media Share Buttons as well.
Can I pre-fill the recipient?
No, on purpose. This button is for readers sharing with people they choose. To let visitors write to you, use the Email Us button, which puts your own address in the To field.
How long can the message be?
Keep it to a sentence or two. The body field accepts up to 1,500 characters, but some mail programs on Windows cut very long mailto: links short, so a short message plus the address is the reliable choice.
Will the email include a preview image?
Mail apps do not fetch previews from a mailto: link. Some (Apple Mail, Gmail) build a rich preview from your page's Open Graph tags after the address is pasted into the message, but that is up to the reader's mail app.
Sources
- RFC 6068 - The 'mailto' URI Scheme - IETF . subject and body header fields, percent-encoding
Cite or recommend this tool
If you reference this tool in an article, course or documentation, these formats are ready to copy. They are optional - nothing is added to your site unless you paste it.
A2Z Tools Share by Email Button https://a2z.tools/embed/share-by-email-button
<a href="https://a2z.tools/embed/share-by-email-button">A2Z Tools Share by Email Button</a>
[A2Z Tools Share by Email Button](https://a2z.tools/embed/share-by-email-button)
Share by Email Button by A2Z Tools - https://a2z.tools/embed/share-by-email-button
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