How to disable an email link?

Question

I am using Ruby on Rails 3 and I would like to disable an email address link in a HTML email.

For example, if in an email I send some raw HTML like

Hi, you email is: <br/>
[email protected]

Gmail autodetects that this is an email address and changes it to

Hi, you email is: <br/>
<a target="_blank" href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a>

I would like to have this output

# Text without the 'mailto:' link
Hi, you email is:
[email protected]

How can I do that?

Answer 1

I have a more natural suggestion: wrap the email/url in an anchor hyperlink.

<a name="myname">[email protected]</a>

Since the text is already wrapped in a hyperlink, Gmail gives up and leave it alone. :)

(Note: also worked for Apple mail client.)

Answer 2

By 2021, the best for me would be:

<a href='#' style='text-decoration: none; color:#000000' name='myname'>[email protected]</a>

Explanation

After trying different services like Gmail, Outlook 365, Mailinator, and MyTrashMail, the results are:

• <a> - wrapping the email into anchor is essential, as raugfer pointed

• href='#' is necessary for Outlook. Linking to a fake anchor disables following the link.

• text-decoration: none, color:#000000 removes underline and changes color from blue link color to natural text color. For those who want not only to disable the link but make its appearance as usual text.

• name='myname' wouldn't harm, however, I haven't noticed its necessity.

Any javascript should be avoided, it won't pass Gmail. E.g. onClick="return false;", <script>...</script>.

If you want to change the cursor to default, cursor: default or cursor: auto won't help. For Gmail only, do without href='#'

Using <span> or <myspan> works for Gmail as Prince Mishra stated, but it doesn't help in all the services (in Outlook, for instance).