Emailing a Class from Experience

Purpose

The goal of this document is to enable faculty members to easily email all students in their class. This requires a one-time setup to determine which system handles default mailto: links.

Who This Is For

  • Faculty / Instructors
  • Users who need to email students via mailto links
  • Users whose mailto links are currently not working or opening in the wrong application

Faculty CRN listing

Procedure

Follow these steps to set up Windows systems to point browser mailto links to use Firefox 

Step 1 - Open Default Programs

  1. Press the Windows (Start) key
  2. Type Default Programs
  3. Select Default Apps
  4. Scroll down on the right side
  5. Click Choose defaults by link type

default apps

Step 2 – Locate MAILTO

  1. Scroll through the list of protocols.
  2. Find MAILTO.

choose mailto

Step 3 - Change the MAILTO Default App

  1. Click the app listed to the right of MAILTO.
  2. If Google Chrome is selected, this will not work.
  3. In the selection window, choose Firefox.
  4. Click Set default.

choose firefox as default

Step 4 - Confirm the Setting

Verify that MAILTO → Firefox is now displayed.

mail defajlt app window

MAILTO is now set to Firefox

Procedure to email my class once the Mailto browser setting is complete

  1. Return to the Class List page.
    CRN listing
  2. Click the box to select all of the students in the class (At this time, there is a defect that requires you to select all or none of your students) 
  3. Click the Email icon. Firefox will open and prompt you to log into Gmail (first time only).
  4. Log in to Gmail and allow access. After the initial setup:
    • Clicking the Email icon will automatically open a Gmail draft
    • All students in the class will be included as BCC recipients
    • No additional prompts should appear in the future
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