html - The "MailTo" ...setting a proper name on the Recipient

Question

How do I set a proper name for the recipient when in HTML I want to use the "mailto" tag.

Something like:

mailto:"John Wayne(jw@email.com)?subject..

How do I achieve that ??

Answer 1

The original standard for mailto: links, RFC 1738, says this:

A mailto URL takes the form:

mailto:<rfc822-addr-spec>

where <rfc822-addr-spec> is (the encoding of an) addr-spec, as specified in RFC 822 [6].

Under that definition, no proper name could be included.

But the mailto: section of RFC 1738 has been superseded by RFC 2368, which allows (among other things, including predefined subject lines) for an RFC 822 mailbox specification—which includes a proper name.

[2016-05-31] As David Bala?ic points out in a comment, RFC 2368 is in turn obsoleted by RFC 6068. From Section 9, “Main Changes from RFC 2368”:

The main changes from RFC 2368 are as follows:

• Changed syntax from RFC 2822 <mailbox> to [RFC5322] <addr-spec>.

In actual use, mailto:Fred Foo<foo@example.com> still seems to work, but it’s not officially supported; you may also have to encode the space, i.e., mailto:Fred%20Foo<foo@example.com>, and/or put the name in quotes, i.e., mailto:"Fred Foo"<foo@example.com>.