Email Development
Stop Gmail from Wrapping Your Phone Number into Text Links
Email Development
Both the desktop and mobile version(s) of Gmail now insert an anchor link around phone numbers.
In the desktop version, the link opens Google’s new voice/chat console which is displayed along the right column of the Gmail interface.
In mobile versions, the link opens up the mobile phone console with your phone number pre-populated making it very easy to dial numbers directly from your email.
Each of the following formats will get converted to links:
212-389-3934
212.389.3934
(800) 389-3934
1-800-389-3934
(212) 389-3934
212–389–3934
212—389—3934
212–389–3934
212–389–3934
1–212–389–3934
212 -389 -3934
1.) Use an HTML entity in your phone number that Gmail does not recognize:
212­-389­-3934
In the example above I used the following entity just before each dash: “­”
212­-389­-3934
In the example above I used: "­"
Unfortunatly, this HTML entity renders a dash “-” in Lotus Notes 6.5 and 7 (only) so the phone number appears like this: 212–389–3934
2.) Wrap an anchor tag around the phone number with an inline style that matches the rest of your text:
<a href=”#” style=”color:#0F3; text-decoration:none”>342-389-3934</a>
3.) If it’s possible, use the text version of the phone number:
555-212-SHOP
If you can find any additional ways to bypass the text links in Gmail, don’t hesitate to share them below!
Update October 14, 2011: This fix also works if you want to block Gmail from inserting links around your URLs and Email addresses.
So change name@test.com to:
name@test­.com
Change www.mydomain.com to:
www.mydomain­.com
Change https://www.mydomain.com to:
http:­//www.mydomain­.com
