One Click To Send A Page By Email In Chrome

It is easy to add a one click function to send a page by email in Google Chrome.

Firefox and IE both let you quickly email someone a link to the webpage you are currently viewing. This simple option opens up a new email in your default mail program – with the webpage link already included in the message.

However, Chrome does not include such a feature – you have to resort to copying the webpage URL (address), opening your mail program, creating a new email and pasting the URL into it…

If you often share web page addresses with others via email, this missing feature can become quite annoying so I’ll show you how to add it in Chrome.

Tip: for users of multiple browsers: Firefox and IE both allow quick email of a page link as follows:

  • Firefox – Select File \ Email Link from the menu bar (if displayed) or click the Firefox button then Send Email.
  • IE – select File \ Send \ Link by E-mail from the Menu bar (if displayed) or Page \ Send Link by E-mail from the Command bar.

Send Page Link By Email In Chrome

There used to be an official ‘Email This Page’ extension by Google which added an email button to the Chrome toolbar to do just this. However that extension has been removed.

So now there are a couple of ways to add the functionality to Chrome – via a different extension or via a special bookmark.

[There are extensions that allow sharing of webpage links to dozens of social media sites but they are outside the scope of this article – simple page link sending by email.]

I’ll look at the extension method first:

1. ‘Send Link by Email or Gmail’ Chrome Extension

Install from Google Web Store here. You should now see a new red email button in the Chrome toolbar – right click on the button and select Options to configure it as shown below:

send page by email
Send Link by Email – Options

Choose whether to send email via Outlook (or similar mail program), or by Gmail. If you wish, you can add a message that will appear at the start of the Subject line in the email, as I have added in the example above. Save Settings when you have finished.

Now, if you press the red email button in the toolbar, it will open up a new email – the current page link is included in the Body of the email and the title of the webpage is included in the Subject (after your prefix if you added one).

Additional Features

This extension also adds a new ‘right click’ (context menu) entry – to email either selected text (together with the page link) or a URL link to a picture within the page. To use either of these features:

  • Select (highlight) some text within the page then right click on it and choose ‘Email link’ from the context menu to open a new email – as well as a page link, the email Body will include all the text you selected, for easy sharing with your contacts.

Tip: copying selected text may be problematic if the website text includes unusual fonts and symbols – these may be rendered in the email Body with weird codes instead of symbols, so you may need to edit the text a bit.

  • Right click on a picture within the page and choose ‘Email link’ from the context menu to open a new email – the email Body will include the URL link of the picture you selected

2. Send A Page Link Via A Special Bookmark

If you don’t want to use an extension, Chrome’s existing tools make it possible to add a one click bookmark to send a link using an external mail program like Outlook or Windows Live Mail:

  • Create a new bookmark – right click the Bookmarks bar and select ‘Add Page’ to open the Edit Bookmark window.

[If the Bookmarks bar is not displayed, click the Settings / 3 dots icon then ‘Bookmarks’ then ‘Show bookmarks bar’ to display it]

  • In the Name text field, type in a useful description e.g. Email Link
  • In the URL text field, copy and paste the following javascript code:

javascript:location.href='mailto:?SUBJECT='+escape(document.title)+'&BODY='+escape(location.href)

  • Click on ‘Bookmarks bar’ to select it as the location – it should then be highlighted in blue as shown below:

Send link 2

  • Press Save to create the new bookmark – it should appear on the Bookmarks bar with the name you gave it e.g. Email Link.

Whenever you select this new bookmark, it does the same as the ‘Send Link by Email’ button above – it doesn’t copy selected text too, just the page title and link.

It only works with an external email program, not webmail accounts like Gmail etc. However, the bookmark is a quick and simple one click method, without the need for an extension.

Conclusion

The ‘Send link by email’ extension does a good job – the button is a true one click solution while the context menu entry adds useful options to send selected text or pictures by email.

The javascript bookmark is simple and probably sufficient if you only ever need to email page links using a mail program.

However, if you only ever want to send links or text via Gmail, then consider Google’s own ‘Send From Gmail’ extension.

6 thoughts on “One Click To Send A Page By Email In Chrome”

  1. Both Edge and Chrome should develop a send link by email that works with client email software…Lots of folks use this task and Edge doesn’t have it or an extension addon and chrome doesn’t either however there is a few extensions that work but with many bugs…

    Time to find another browser as a result of this, Chrome isn’t improving in the past few years.

  2. works in windows 10 for me – but it doesn’t allow me to use my yahoo email which is the one I 99% of the time when I am on the internet. My gmail is reserved for private purposes. I really thought I was liking google chrome -but this is a real show stopper for me. guess I am going to have to go back to IE. :(

  3. This is my third attempt trying to get send link, which is so easy on IE, and it has failed. I followed your instructions very very carefully. The icon sits on the bookmarks bar right enough, but it does nothing when you are on the website which you wish to bring to the attention of someone else -no email appears. Nothing.

    It gives me a very low opinion of Google. Why bring out a product that cannot do the simplest things? Do they ever test what they do?

    Regards, and thanks for your help. You set out what to do very clearly. It just doesn’t work in my case. back to Firefox and IE for me.

    MB

    • @Michael – strange, if your IE can open a new email link then your email program must be set ok as the default.

      Just tested and both methods still work for me (Windows 7 64bit, Outlook, Chrome 26) but some reviewers of the extension had no joy with it either (seem to be mainly Vista/W8 users?) – but for unknown reasons :-(

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