macOS Mail – Set Default Client Without Adding Email Account

macosmail.appms officepreferences

I'm on OSX el capitan (10.11.6).

I use outlook to access my email and would like outlook to be the default mail application. All the instructions I find online suggest that I should open mail and choose "Mail -> Preferences" to set the default mail app. Unfortunately Preferences is greyed out until an account is added. I don't have another account that I want to add to my mac.

How can I set the default mail client to Outlook without adding an account to the mail client?

Best Answer

The simplest way to do this - which doesn't involve messing with Mail itself - is the old faithful RCDefaultApp
Yes it's ancient; yes it still works; yes it's free.

It installs as a control panel from where you can set defaults for just about anything on the machine... including Mail.

Simply select from a drop menu

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If you want to have a poke at the other sections, note it can take some time to build the apps/services list; don't think it's hung, it's just thinking ;-)

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