Hi Marcy @stardust,
If you’re on Chrome, the first and easiest way to achieve this is to check for a diamond icon to the right of the address bar when you click on an email link. Clicking on this’ll give you a small dropdown menu where you can change the action for email links to mail.google.com. But, it sounds like there’s a good chance this isn’t an option for you, so you’ll want to use a Chrome extension called mailto: (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mailto/gppbppehiogfokmpligejhaepeopajdf?utm_source=chrome-app-launcher) This is an official Chrome extension from the Chrome Web Store, so it’s safe for you to use. From there, open the extension’s settings by clicking on it’s icon near the top right of your screen and select Gmail as your email provider of choice.
If you use Firefox, hit the hamburger menu (the one with the icon that has 3 lines stacked horizontally) on the top right of your screen and click “Options”. From there, click the “Applications” tab at the top of the window that pops up. Once there, either type in the search field right under the “Applications” tab or scroll down until your see “mailto”. You’ll now see a dropdown menu to the right of that. Click the dropdown and select “Use Gmail”. After that, clicking on any email or contact us links in your browser should open in Gmail.
On Opera, you’ll have to use the same Mailto plugin as Chrome. (https://addons.opera.com/en-gb/extensions/details/mailto/?display=en)
When using Edge or IE, however, you’re going to have to go to your system settings, search for “email”, and change your default provider to a mail app on your computer which is logged into your Gmail account. So in this case, I’d recommend you just switch to one of the big three aforementioned browsers.
Let me know if there’s anything I missed or any other way I can help!
—Jake