Problem with URLs in emails...

[HiBoost]

Hello,

I'm not a Mac user but I'm trying to help a friend who is. She has a Macbook Pro from about 1 - 1.5 years ago. She is using the built-in email program. Every time she sends a link that is more than about 40 characters long, only the first part will be hyperlinked. When I receive the email I view the raw message source and I can see that it has word-wrapped the link, which is why only the part on the first line is showing up hyperlinked. It always breaks the link at a "/" or "?" or "-" character which would make sense for a word-wrap function. This seems like such a simple thing but I have tried googling every combo of "mac email word wrap" etc and can't find anyone else having this problem.

I know that if she installs something like Thunderbird we can get around this but I'm thinking there has to be a way to make this work with the built-in email client. She can't be the only Mac user that has ever tried to email a URL!

She is running Mac OS X 10.4.11 by the way.
Thanks for your help!

 

[kkat69]

Are you positive it's not YOUR email program trunc'ing the URL?

She can use TinyURL to format the URL smaller, also there's a plugin for Firefox that'll do the same as well.


FYI I just tested this using Mail and Outlook (Outlook on a windows box) and the URL from Google maps comes out just fine, also my email format is HTML/Rich Text. Even sent it to my iPhone and it worked ok.

 

[HiBoost]

100% positive it's not my client. I get on my mail server and look at the raw message with vi and I can see that not only did it insert a carriage return in the middle of the URL, it put a space before the carriage return. At that point, every email client I have on everything from my PC to my phone displays the URL as broken. If there was no space at the end of the first line I bet the client might "reassemble" the URL, but with that space and a carriage return there's no way it would assume it's all one URL.

Here is a cut and paste from my vi session. I turned on list mode set list) so that it prints $ to represent end of line so you can see there is actually a space at the end of the first line. You can also see that we're not talking about a crazy long URL here. TinyURL seems a bit overkill for something like this (not that I don't appreciate the idea, just saying it's a lot of work to have to go through for every URL you send out)

$
[url]http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1d0b127c-a380-11dd-942c-000077b07658.html?[/url] $
nclick_check=1$

Here are the only two mail headers that seem to be relevant... can we learn anything from them?

Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v753.1)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed

Oh, and apparently I'm not the only one:

http://www.hawkwings.net/2005/07/26/broken-hyperlinks-in-apple-mail/

 

[DaveF]

Every time she sends a link that is more than about 40 characters long, only the first part will be hyperlinked. When I receive the email I view the raw message source and I can see that it has word-wrapped the link, which is why only the part on the first line is showing up hyperlinked. It always breaks the link at a "/" or "?" or "-" character which would make sense for a word-wrap function.

This is a long-standing problem affecting Mac mail sent to Windows users; I've been annoyed by it and wish I knew how to fix it. (specifically, how to eliminate line breaks from Mac Mail).

I may have a work around: use the Link command under the Edit menu. I think this uses HTML email, and creates an HTML link that can be read by other HTML-savvy email programs -- which is all of them these days.

 

[kkat69]

Oh, and apparently I'm not the only one:

http://www.hawkwings.net/2005/07/26/broken-hyperlinks-in-apple-mail/

Though I do sympathize that post is about 3 years old with the last comment over a year old.

Have her double check her settings, HTML/Rich Text, try a url in TEXT, also another thing to think about is what email server is she sending through? GMail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Me.com, etc. I know what 'tool' she's using, but what is her server, the SMTP server itself might be doing it.

Also the mention of TinyURL is a tip from MacMost.com that talks about sending long urls to clients and smtp servers that trunc them.


Try having her send a fake URL, like http://www.dkkkkk.com/kkkkkkkkkkkkk...jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj/

I've just had my wife send me a couple long URL's and they still work just fine. She's sending via Mail and Comcast.net as the server, checks good, I sent via Mail and Me.com and sent good.

Not sure what else to say but check her settings on how her mail is formatting/pre-formatted and how she's putting the URL in the email (simple copy paste, dragging from browser, etc) try different things until a mutual ground with a desired result occurs.

This is a long-standing problem affecting Mac mail sent to Windows users; I've been annoyed by it and wish I knew how to fix it. (specifically, how to eliminate line breaks from Mac Mail).

I may have a work around: use the Link command under the Edit menu. I think this uses HTML email, and creates an HTML link that can be read by other HTML-savvy email programs -- which is all of them these days.

You say long standing, and I believe you it has been an issue, but I know about 30 people who don't have this issue. 4 of which I keep in contact daily and we haven't had any issue with sending long urls to our Windows desktops in our office. Not sure what to say about it, but since I got my iMac last year I haven't had any issue sending long URLs like Google Map directions, etc.

EDIT: I had 2 co-workers send me emails and one of them (an ex-apple certified tech) said yes there were issues but they haven't experienced that in about a year. They don't believe 10.4.11 would have any issue with it but it's possible but again, doubtful. Both were sent via Mail and Me.com so that's Mail + Apple SMTP Server and I opened them in Outlook and on my iPhone and the url checked good.

 

[jc1350]

I think sometimes it's the sender's program doing it, and sometimes the receiver's.

Long URLs in email are a pain in general (regardless of what platform). For really long ones I use tinyurl.com.

 

[MisterMe]

... Every time she sends a link that is more than about 40 characters long, only the first part will be hyperlinked. ...

The standard protocol for preserving URL's in messages is to enclose them in brackets like so: <http://www.anywebsiteyoucanthinkof.org/where?=planetearth/time?=always> or <anybody@anydomain.net>

Do it this way and you don't have to worry about line breaks, unusual delimiters, or anything else.

 

[DaveF]

You say long standing, and I believe you it has been an issue, but I know about 30 people who don't have this issue. 4 of which I keep in contact daily and we haven't had any issue with sending long urls to our Windows desktops in our office. Not sure what to say about it, but since I got my iMac last year I haven't had any issue sending long URLs like Google Map directions, etc.

Maybe it's been fixed. It was a chronic issue with my wife sending me emails from her 10.3 machine to my XP / Outlook system. I'll have to try our 10.5 machines to see if it's gone away.