This is really a matter for your machine settings but is such a common user question that we have published an explanation here.

It is relevant for phones, Macs and PCs. The principles are the same but I have used Outlook 2016 screens running on Windows 11 which have not changed much for 20 years or more. Screns on yor machine will be very similar.

When you click on an email link or use the mail merge “send using my lovcal mail system” option, then the machine you are using will look for two settings.

Default email app for sending mail from AXLR8

This is set in your default apps area of your settings for your computer. There may be more than one email programme on your machine. These are called email clients. Examples of these programmes include Outlook (probably the most popular) “Mail” on Windows and also called “Mail” on Apple Macs. Many others are available from vendors and open source projects. On smart phones there are a variety – some of which are provided by the hardware manufacturer such as Samsung Mail. Mail (or email) clients are the programmes that run on your machine to show you your mail boxes (Inbox, outbox, sent items, etc.) and other folders and can be set up to receive mail and send mail out. You can change the one that your machine calls upon first in the Default Apps area of machine settings.

Choose default Mail App for sending mail from AXLR8 on your Windows PC.
Choose default Mail App for sending mail from AXLR8 on your Windows PC.

Default Sender email address for sending mail from AXLR8

The default email sending address is set in the mail client software. Let us suppose you have chosen the mail client software you want to use. In this example I have chosen Outlook which I use for work. If you have several email addresses but aloway want to send from you main work email address. You need to set that as the “Default”

There are lots of different versions of Microsoft ”Outlook”. As a representative example, here is a screen shot from mine.  In most versions, you go to File in the top menu and then Account Settings.  Then you get this self-explanatory screen with a tick box by your default email sending account.

Choose AXLR8 default email sending address on your PC.
Choose AXLR8 default email sending address on your PC

As you can see “Set as Default” is greyed out on my screen. That is because there is no other option. However, if you have multiple email address accounts on your email programme, you can select one to be your Default Account for emails.

Calls

Likewise, if you have a link from AXLR8 to your telephone system, texts, calendar, then your click will launch the default application program for that function. To clarify with an example: if your default telephone system is Teams or RingCentral, then that is what will be launched and the phone will start to call that person’s number.