mail_to_native 0.8.1

Pick an installed mail app and open its compose screen with subject and body prefilled.

mail_to_native

Pick an installed mail app and open its compose screen with subject and body prefilled — through a native dialog, not a Flutter widget.

Most packages in this space open the mail app's inbox. mail_to_native opens a prefilled draft, in the app the user picks.

Demo

iOS	Android

Platform Support

Platform	Status	Notes
iOS	✅ Full support (13.0+)	UIAlertController picker, MFMailComposeViewController for Apple Mail
Android	✅ Full support (API 24+)	Native dialog with launcher icons, ACTION_SENDTO
Web / desktop	❌ Not supported	N/A

	iOS	Android
Detection	Known schemes probed with canOpenURL + MFMailComposeViewController.canSendMail()	Every mailto: handler, via PackageManager
Picker	UIAlertController (.alert, centred)	Centred dialog with each app's launcher icon
Apple Mail	MFMailComposeViewController — an in-app sheet	n/a
Others	Per-app compose deep link	Explicit ACTION_SENDTO intent
"Other apps"	UIActivityViewController	ACTION_SEND chooser

Why Apple Mail is special

On iOS 14+ mailto: is handed to the user's default mail app. If that default is Gmail, a mailto: link labelled "Apple Mail" opens Gmail. There is no Apple-Mail-only compose URL, so this plugin drives MFMailComposeViewController instead — which always composes in Apple Mail, as an in-app sheet.

Installation

dependencies:
  mail_to_native: ^0.8.1

iOS needs one extra step — see iOS setup. Android needs none.

Usage

import 'package:mail_to_native/mail_to_native.dart';

const message = MailMessage(
  subject: 'Meeting notes',
  body: 'Here is the summary…',
  to: ['[e-mail]'],
);

// Native dialog, then compose. Skips the dialog when only one app exists.
await MailTo.pickAndCompose(message);

The dialog always appears, even with one app installed, and carries an "other apps" entry that opens the system share sheet. No mail app at all? The same dialog shows [emptyMessage] with an OK button — you write no empty-list branch:

await MailTo.pickAndCompose(
  message,
  dialogTitle: 'Choose a mail app',
  cancelLabel: 'Cancel',
  emptyMessage: 'No mail app is installed on this device.',
  okLabel: 'OK',
  otherAppsLabel: 'Other apps…',
);

Pass showEmptyAlert: false to suppress the empty dialog and just get null back, or showOtherApps: false to drop the share entry.

The share sheet is also available on its own:

await MailTo.share(message);   // every app that takes text, not just mail

Share-sheet header

Without metadata iOS shows a bare app icon and no title, because a plain text item carries no preview. Pass [ShareMetadata] to fill the header strip:

await MailTo.share(
  message,
  metadata: const ShareMetadata(title: 'Meeting notes', subtitle: 'krisp.ai'),
);

// pickAndCompose forwards it when the user chooses "other apps"
await MailTo.pickAndCompose(message, shareMetadata: metadata);

• title — bold line; defaults to the message subject.
• subtitle — grey line under it, where a shared link shows its domain. Ignored unless icon/image is set: iOS treats an item carrying a subtitle as a file and replaces the app icon with a generic document glyph. iOS only.
• icon — PNG/JPEG bytes for the thumbnail. Leave it unset: iOS then draws the host app's icon full-bleed. Supplied artwork gets aspect-fitted into a white tile, which looks inset by comparison. Falls back to image. iOS only.
• image — PNG bytes shared as a picture next to the text: a mail attachment, a photo in messengers. On Android it is served through the plugin's own FileProvider, so hosts need no manifest entry.

Android has no subtitle or icon slot for a plain-text share, so only title applies there (as the chooser's EXTRA_TITLE).

Driving the list yourself:

final apps = await MailTo.installedApps();   // [] when none installed
if (apps.isNotEmpty) {
  await MailTo.compose(message, app: apps.first);
}

Handing the message to the platform default:

await MailTo.compose(message);   // no app → default mailto handler

iOS setup (required)

iOS cannot enumerate installed apps. canOpenURL returns false for any scheme not declared by the host app, so add this to ios/Runner/Info.plist — without it, only Apple Mail is ever detected:

<key>LSApplicationQueriesSchemes</key>
<array>
  <string>googlegmail</string>
  <string>ms-outlook</string>
  <string>readdle-spark</string>
  <string>ymail</string>
  <string>airmail</string>
  <string>fastmail</string>
  <string>protonmail</string>
  <string>mailru-mail</string>
</array>

Keep any schemes already in that array — add to it, don't replace it. Listing only a subset is fine: apps you leave out simply never appear in the picker.

Why the package cannot do this for you

canOpenURL reads LSApplicationQueriesSchemes from the app bundle's Info.plist (Runner.app/Info.plist). A pod's s.info_plist writes the plugin framework's Info.plist, which iOS never consults, and SwiftPM has no Info.plist merging at all. Xcode copies one Info.plist per target — there is no merge step, unlike Android's manifest merger (which is why the <queries> block can ship inside this package).

If you would rather not maintain the list by hand, add this to your app's ios/Podfile — it patches Runner/Info.plist on every pod install:

post_install do |installer|
  # … your existing post_install body …

  require 'xcodeproj'
  schemes = %w[googlegmail ms-outlook readdle-spark ymail airmail fastmail protonmail mailru-mail]
  plist_path = File.join(__dir__, 'Runner', 'Info.plist')
  plist = Xcodeproj::Plist.read_from_path(plist_path)
  existing = plist['LSApplicationQueriesSchemes'] || []
  plist['LSApplicationQueriesSchemes'] = (existing + schemes).uniq
  Xcodeproj::Plist.write_to_path(plist, plist_path)
end

Trade-off: it rewrites a tracked file, so it will show up in git status the first time and re-add any scheme you deliberately removed.

Mail.ru

Mail.ru publishes no compose URL scheme — mailru-mail is the community-reported one and is unverified. If the app is installed but never appears in the picker, that scheme is wrong. A bad guess is harmless: detection just skips it. Reports with a confirmed scheme are welcome.

Android needs none of this — Mail.ru is enumerated like any other mailto: handler.

Android setup

None. The plugin's own manifest contributes the Android 11+ <queries> block.

Notes

• MailMessage.isHtml is honoured only by Apple Mail's native composer. mailto:-driven apps have no way to express HTML and always get plain text.
• compose resolves true when the composer opened (for Apple Mail: when the sheet closed without an error), false when nothing could be opened.
• Long bodies: mailto: URLs are length-limited by the receiving app. Apple Mail's native composer has no such limit.
• Apple Mail is reported as installed only when it has an account configured — simulators usually don't.
• MailApp.isOther marks the "other apps" pick returned by pickApp; hand it to share. pickAndCompose does that for you.
• cancelLabel is iOS-only. The Android dialog is dismissed by tapping outside or pressing back, so it carries no cancel button.
• The Android dialog is drawn programmatically (no Material dependency) because a Flutter host activity is not guaranteed to carry an AppCompat/Material theme. It follows the system light/dark setting.

License

MIT