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PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT
Problems Solved
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Why can’t I email my GP?
Firefox suggests using either Googlemail or
Yahoo! MailQ
Help! I registered with my
local GP practice to order my
repeat prescriptions online. I
was invited to visit mypractice.
[email protected] in order
to make my request to our local
chemist. This is where the problem
starts, as the computer asked me
choose an application to open the
‘mailto’ link. This listed Yahoo! Mail
and Googlemail as options, but I use
Firefox for my emails. I visited the
General section of Firefox’s Settings
page and selected Firefox as the default
for mailto. Having done this I restarted
and then clicked the mailto link and
was pleased to find this time that
Firefox was listed as an option.
Unfortunately, selecting Firefox did not
seem to take me further and I jumped
back to where I came from. Having
read Computeractive for many years, I
cannot recall you ever mentioning
mailto. What does it do? I did not get
much help online. I use Plusnet
webmail, incidentally.
John ShepherdA
The fundamentals of your
problem are quite
straightforward. However, it
took us a while to unravel what you
originally wrote, and what we’ve
published has been edited for length.
So let’s start with the place you were
“invited to visit”. This is an email
address. We have changed it here to
avoid revealing your real practice.
However, its format is one used bymany NHS trusts and, frankly, we believe
many less confident computer users
would struggle to understand what to do
with it because the full stop in the
address can be confusing.
We think you started by typing this
email address into Google, as doing so
returns precisely one result (for your
specific practice). If you then click that
link, the surgery website opens on a page
about ordering repeat prescriptions. That
page includes an invitation to do so via
email, by clicking a link that is the same
email address.
Do this in Firefox and it’ll indeed pop
up a mailto box asking what you want to
do (see screenshot^1 ) – because Firefox
itself isn’t an email tool. It suggests either
Googlemail (meaning Gmail) or Yahoo!
Mail webmail services. Cancelling that
before going to Firefox’s Settings does
allow you to add Firefox, as you did, but
then you get stuck in a loop. This isbecause, as noted, Firefox isn’t an email
service – and mailto is a ‘handler’
protocol that tells your computer
which email program or service to
launch to handle the email link.
It’s not impossible to make Firefox
connect to other webmail tools, but the
method is complex and won’t work
with every service. So, forget that.
Which brings us to the simple
solution – and that’s to log into your
Plusnet webmail and compose a
message to the real mypractice.
[email protected] email
address, just as you would to anyone
else. Indeed, you could click the
Address Book option and then add this
email address as a contact^2. Then,
whenever you wish to request a repeat
prescription, you can simply right-click
the contact name in Plusnet webmail,
then choose ‘Compose mail to’^3 and
write your request^4.Add the NHS email to contacts (2); select ‘Compose mail to‘ (3); send email to that address (4)8 – 21 June 2022 • Issue 6331
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