sending html mail if app allows

Question

I want to send a html mail from my application. I know that not all mail clients allow html tags. But I found the constant Intent.EXTRA_HTML_TEXT in the API (http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/Intent.html#EXTRA_HTML_TEXT).

My code looks like this, but it shows always just the text and not the html formatted text whatever mail client I use:

 Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND);
 intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, subject);
 intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, "Hello World");
 intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_HTML_TEXT, "<html><body><h1>Hello World</h1></body><html>");

 intent.setType("text/html"); // intent.setType("plain/text");

 startActivity(Intent.createChooser(intent,  "Choose Email Client:"));

So where is the mistake?

Possible duplicate of http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2544141/send-html-mail-using-android-intent?rq=1 — Charlie-Blake, Apr 04 '13 at 15:23
No, it's not a duplicate. In this post there is just the question how to post html tags in a specific mail client (e.g. gmail). That works for me fine. I need an alternative solution: take the intent "EXTRA_TEXT" if the mail client doesn't support html tags (e.g. gmx), and take the intent "EXTRA_HTML_TEXT" if the mail client supports html tags (e.g. gmail). So how can I solve this Problem? And whats wrong with my code? — owe, Apr 08 '13 at 06:00
Is there really no one who tried this already? I appreciate any hint. Thanks — owe, Apr 12 '13 at 05:56

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 27 '13 at 21:57

Sorry, not a positive answer because it doesn't seem to work, at least not in a way that's really universal and reliable. Some mailers are happy with this:

String body = "<html>something</html>";
intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, Html.fromHtml(body));

Note that you don't need the new EXTRA_HTML_TEXT, it works with the older one as well. If this covers all you need then you might be OK. But if you also want to address many other possible intent receivers like Facebook, Skype or even apps like Drive or Keep, unfortunately, I couldn't find a perfect solution but I'd very much like to be proven wrong.

Basically, we have three different formats:

String body = "<html>something</html>";
Spanned html = Html.fromHtml(body);
String stripped = html.toString();

and two possible recipients:

if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.JELLY_BEAN)
  intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_HTML_TEXT, ???);
intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, ???);

I tried all possible combinations but in any of those, there will be some well known and widely used app that doesn't want to play nicely. Either we get HTML tags embedded, or no formatting, or even no text at all...

sending html mail if app allows

1 Answers1