When You Type an Email Address Into a Hyperlink Field in MS Access It Turns It Into a Web

When you type an email address into a hyperlink field in MS Access 2003 or earlier it turns it into a web address.

Example: -- When clicked on, this email address will try to open the web page: http://

The "correct" way to enter in an email address is to type mailto: in front of the email address, or to use the Hyperlink option under Insert (ctrl-k), and choose Email address from the bottom left.

Example: mailto: -- When clicked on, this email address will try to open your default email program and create a new message To: .

What do you do if you already have a list of email addresses all going to http:// addresses?

Go to the design view of the table, change the Data Type from Hyperlink to Text. When you switch back to the data view, you will get a warning that some data may be lost, that's ok. Your data will now look similar to this:

Select the Email Address column, and choose Replace from the Edit menu (ctrl-h).

Replace all of the http:// with mailto:. Make sure that Match says Any Part of Field. Then in the design view, change the field back to a hyperlink data type.