Creating Advanced XHTML Email Links: Include Subject, CC, BCC, and Email Body

By  on  

Creating email links is a piece of cake, right? It's as simple as:

<a href="mailto:live@wembley.com">Email Oasis</a>

Everyone knows this. Did you know, however, that you can include subject, CC, BCC, and email body text information in the link as well? Using a querystring-like syntax, you can do more with that simple link.

<a href="mailto:live@wembley.com">Email Oasis</a>

<!-- add the subject -->
<a href="mailto:live@wembley.com?Subject=Your Next Show">Email Oasis</a>

<!-- add the cc's and bcc's -->
<a href="mailto:live@wembley.com?Subject=Your Next Show&CC=johnl@beatles.com&BCC=paulm@wings.com">Email Oasis</a>

<!-- add some default body text -->
<a href="mailto:live@wembley.com?Subject=Your Next Show&CC=johnl@beatles.com&BCC=paulm@wings.com&Body=I can't wait for the next show!">Email Oasis</a>

Remember that simply placing email addresses on a page without encoding them first is like simply emailing spammers your email address. Encode your email addresses!

Recent Features

  • By
    Designing for Simplicity

    Before we get started, it's worth me spending a brief moment introducing myself to you. My name is Mark (or @integralist if Twitter happens to be your communication tool of choice) and I currently work for BBC News in London England as a principal engineer/tech...

  • By
    Responsive Images: The Ultimate Guide

    Chances are that any Web designers using our Ghostlab browser testing app, which allows seamless testing across all devices simultaneously, will have worked with responsive design in some shape or form. And as today's websites and devices become ever more varied, a plethora of responsive images...

Incredible Demos

Discussion

  1. Your post here saved me some time at work, so thanks. I can just never remember if its PHP or URL encoding that is choosy about how CC is written (cc, CC, or Cc).

  2. garrobo

    George,

    I need help on getting a comment system like the one I’m writing on, my question to you is how to get it to my website is there a code that I need to download or do I need to purchase it let me know
    I’m in love with it. thanks

  3. I’d like to thank you, for this tutorial, as a newbie in xhtml, its a lot of thing i never know before, thanks for this ‘mailing’ tutorial. Im sorry for this bad english

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!