How To Set the Default Browser and Email App On Your Mac

If you want to change your default browser from Safari and your default email app from Mail, you need to go to unlikely places to find the right settings.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how to set the Default Browser and email app on your Mac.
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Now when you're thinking about setting the default app on your Mac it is usually for setting the default app for a file. So, for instance here I've got some images inside of the Finder. They are .jpeg images and I can set the default app for these by selecting a file and then going to File, Get Info or Command i, and then you can see Open With which will change just the default for that one file. But if I were to switch that to something and then click the Change All button then that would change the default for all files with that exact same extension. So, for instance, you can change the default app to open PDF by selecting  a pdf, Get Info, Open With, set it to something and then Change All. But that's for files. You need it different when you're talking about a browser or an email app. 
When you click on a link in an app it needs to open a webpage. To open a webpage you need to do that in a browser. So which browser should it use? The default is Safari, of course. But what if you wanted to change that to another browser. So, for instance, in my own Clip Tools App there's an Instructions and Feedback option and that will open a webpage up and of course it needs to do that in your default browser, in this case Safari. So it goes to this webpage in Safari. But what if you prefer another browser as your default. 
Well, it used to be the setting for this was found in Safari Settings. But with macOS Sonoma it's found in System Settings and then you go to Desktop & Dock, and then scroll down here. You're going to find it between Widgets and Windows. There is the Default Web Browser settings. You can choose any app that is setup as a web browser. So, in this case I have three installed. I'll set it to Firefox instead of Safari. So now when I choose to open up the Instructions & Feedback page it will do so in the Firefox App instead. 
But what about an email app. Usually you just launch the email app that you want and you check your email and compose a new message. But what if you were to click on a link and the link were to trigger on a new email. I have a sample webpage that will do it and if I click here it will open up the Mail App and start a new message right here with some things already set like the TO address is already set in this. But what if I prefer another email app. Well here you do it inside of Mail. You do Mail, Settings. So even if you don't use Mail you've got to use Mail to go and change this. Under General the first item here is Default email Reader and any other email reader you've got will be in this list. But I don't happen to have any installed. But you would see it here and you'd be able to select it. You could also choose Select and then choose any app that you want in your Applications Folder or elsewhere. 
Now I know some people are going to ask, How can you use gmail as your default email? The way to do that normally is to have gmail setup as an account here in the Mail App or whatever mail app you use. Then just have the mail app set as your default mail app and then it will work that way. But what if you want to use the web version of gmail? Well then it is a little more difficult because you actually want to go to a web browser to read and send email, not an email app. 
There is a way to do it though. If you are okay with using Goggle Chrome, which you might be since you're using the gmail website anyway. So you just want to go to Mail Settings and then change the default email reader to Chrome. So I'm going to select it here, like that, and that is now the default email reader. But now if I click on this link all it is going to do is launch Chrome. It is not going to know what to do with the information, that it should actually start a new email message. So you have to tell Chrome to expect to get email links. The way to do that is in Chrome go to mail.goggle.com, just like you're going to read your email. Then look carefully here at the top. You're going to see this special little button that is for installing a service handler. You click that and you select Allow. Then Done. Now the mail.goggle.com site has told Chrome that it wants to handle email links. So now you can close this window here completely. As an example here let's go back in Safari and click this email link. It is going to launch Chrome. It is going to go to the gmail site and it is going to start a new message with the information filled in from the link. 
That's how to change your default browser and default email client on your Mac. Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 10 Responses to “How To Set the Default Browser and Email App On Your Mac”

Eugenia Burkes

11 months ago

I would like to set DuckDuckGo as my default browser but my only choices are Safari and Chrome. Within Safari, I have set DDG. Is that the only way to use it?

Gary Rosenzweig

Eugenia: DuckDuckGo is a search engine, not a browser. You use Safari as a browser (for instance) and then DuckDuckGo would be your search engine inside that browser.

Rocky W

DuckDuckGo is a browser on Mac (only I think). It’s in the App Store as it is the search engine for Safari. I use it as my secondary browser as it uses less resources than chrome.

Marcia Karon

I'm still using Ventura, so how to I change the default email from Mail to Gmail? Is this on an older post?

Marcia: It should be the same.

Keith Flanagan

Gary, Duck Duck Go is a browser for Mac. It works great, the only reason I don't use it as my main browser is because it doesn't support 1 Password. Might want to check your sources on this one.

Keith: It is. But many more people use the DuckDuckGo search engine than their custom browser. With all the extra features Safari has to offer, plus the Apple ecosystem integration, plus how good Safari is for privacy, I'm not really sure of the need for the DuckDuckGo browser.

Carlos

10 months ago

After changing my mail app to Outlook, Outlook is not my default app when attempting "send in mail" in the mac's print option. In other words, when you attempt to email a PDF from the print menu the default email app is the standard Mac mail app not Outlook. Any idea how to stop this from occurring?

Carlos: So do you mean Print, PDF, Send In Mail? That a script there that literally is "Send In Mail" as in the Mail app. There's another option in the same menu to edit the menu. You'd need to use that and assign a script of your own, made in Script Editor or Automator. Not sure of your experience with coding and the like though. Whether it would be worth it to put the work in depends on that and how often you need to do this. You can easily just export a PDF and email that.

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I am referring to the "Print,PDF, Send in Mail" that is available in the print menu. I am familiar with AppleScript and I will look into your suggestion further. Thanks for clarifying that there is no actual setting that I am missing.

How To Set the Default Browser and Email App On Your Mac

Comments: 10 Responses to “How To Set the Default Browser and Email App On Your Mac”

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