#885346 clicking mailto link in chromium silently sends empty mail

Package:
neomutt
Source:
neomutt
Description:
command line mail reader based on Mutt, with added features
Submitter:
Ander Punnar
Date:
2026-06-26 17:21:01 UTC
Severity:
important
Tags:
#885346#5
Date:
2017-12-26 14:36:11 UTC
From:
To:
1. create test.html with following:

2. open test.html with chromium and click on link

3. check mailbox of recipient@example.com :>

ymmv, but this can be fixed changing neomutt.desktop file:
#885346#10
Date:
2019-01-07 02:37:59 UTC
From:
To:
I am not sure this is neomutt's fault or chromium's. It looks like the
root cause is xdg-open not respecting Terminal=true in neomutt.desktop.
There is an existing bug about that:

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=92514

Wrapping the neomutt command in a terminal emulator works as a
workaround for this specific bug, but is a bad fix in general since it
would create a second, redundant terminal if launched from anything
other than xdg-open.

I thought mailto: links used to work for me in chromium... I am not sure
if something changed (probably in chromium) or if I imagined that.

BTW the reproducer can be even shorter: just enter
mailto:someone@example.com in the address bar.
#885346#15
Date:
2019-03-15 06:50:04 UTC
From:
To:
Hi,

Cloning this bug and assigning the clone to mutt, because this also
affects stretch.  I can't believe it's taken me this long to try to
get mutt to handle mailto links.  It also has the potential to
embarrassingly spam the BTS if someone clicks the reply link more than
once (see #922951) :-$


Regards,
Nicholas
#885346#22
Date:
2019-11-21 00:29:16 UTC
From:
To:
#885346#27
Date:
2023-10-12 12:41:08 UTC
From:
To:
Hey, guys.

I'm going through the bugs opened against neomutt to see what the state
of them are and maybe hopefully close some bugs :-)

Currently on testing, I'm not able to reproduce this bug. So I think it
might have been fixed in chromium, neomutt or xdg (although the bugs
sent here, mutt and xdg, are still open.

I'll wait for more info or someone to double check if it's actually
fixed or the result of some different config I have.

Cheers,
Charles
#885346#34
Date:
2025-01-04 02:52:46 UTC
From:
To:
Hi again!

Well, now I realize the problem. I'm a firefox user and it didn't
happen there on 2023-10-12, but now the problem is here [firefox] too
and I've sent a few spams to the BTS...

I'll take a look and try to fix it.

Cheers,
Charles
#885346#39
Date:
2026-06-26 15:45:08 UTC
From:
To:
The issue may be in the neomutt.desktop file:

[Desktop Entry]
Categories=Office;Network;Email;
Comment=Simple text-based Mail User Agent
Comment[de]=Einfaches, Text-basiertes Mailprogramm
Exec=neomutt %u
Icon=neomutt
Name=neomutt
Name[de]=Mutt
MimeType=x-scheme-handler/mailto;
NoDisplay=false
Terminal=true
Type=Application


Terminal=true specifies that this mailto scheme-handler runs in a
terminal, but finding out what terminal to use is left completely up to
the desktop environment, which can vary a lot depending on if the user
is even using a desktop environment.

One possible workaround could be to use Debian's x-terminal-emulator
symlink like this:

Exec=x-terminal-emulator -e neomutt %u
Terminal=false
#885346#44
Date:
2026-06-26 17:05:39 UTC
From:
To:
This is an xdg-utils bug which was addressed upstream here:

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xdg/xdg-utils/-/merge_requests/160