Regardless which email client you are using, when you need to compose an email, you always need to switch to your email client and click the “Compose” button. Lifehacker shared a quick and neat way to compose a new email directly from your browser.

In your browser, all you have to do is to go to the address bar, type mailto: (don’t forget the colon behind the “mailto”) and press “Enter”.

Your default email client will automatically launch with a Compose window.

Here are more things you can do with it:

1. Type mailto:[email protected] and the”To” field will be auto-populated with the recipient’s email address.

2. To send to multiple recipients, use the syntax mailto:[email protected],[email protected],[email protected]

3. Type mailto:[email protected]?subject=Enter Subject Here to insert the subject into the Compose window.

The above trick will work with all mailto syntax, but I doubt you will want to type a long text in the address bar.

Note: The shortcut key to access the address bar for most browsers is “Ctrl + L”. This means you can just press “Ctrl + L” and type “mailto:” to quickly open a compose window.

Taking it further

To take it further, you can even create a bookmark with “mailto:” in the URL/location field. When you click the bookmark, the Compose window will automatically open.

Note: In Android, the trick works in Firefox mobile browser. It doesn’t work in mobile Chrome. In iOS, it works in the mobile Safari as well.

Compose a New Email in Any Client with a Few Keystrokes

Image credit: Browser Mail Concept Illustration Design by BigStockPhoto