Email QR Code Generator
Create a QR code that opens the user's email app with your address — and optionally a prefilled subject and body — ready to send. Great for support contact, RSVPs, and lead capture.
An email QR code encodes a mailto: URI — mailto:you@example.com?subject=…&body=… — into a scannable image. When scanned by any smartphone camera, the phone opens its default mail app with the To, Subject and Body fields prefilled, ready to send. The QR never sends the email automatically; the user still taps Send. Perfect for support contact, RSVPs, feedback links on posters, and lead-capture QR codes in trade-show booths. Subject and body must be percent-encoded: spaces become %20 and line breaks %0A, or the fields truncate at the first space. A long prefilled body inflates the pattern quickly, so keep it to a short prompt rather than a template. Behaviour varies at the edges — some Android launchers open a mail client chooser rather than a specific app, and a device with no mail account configured will do nothing visible at all, which is worth knowing before printing a thousand flyers.
How does a Email QR code work?
The mailto: scheme is standardised in RFC 6068 and understood by every mobile OS since the mid-2000s. Subject and body strings are URL-encoded before being appended as query parameters, so line breaks (%0A) and non-ASCII characters travel safely. The scan handoff opens whatever the user has configured as their default mail app — Apple Mail, Gmail app, Outlook mobile, Spark, ProtonMail, etc. Because the QR is static, there is no click tracking or lead attribution unless you build it into the body text (for example, a hidden 'source=poster-2026-Q3' line).
Common mistakes and limitations of Email QR codes
Only one recipient scales cleanly in practice — CC and BCC work in the URI syntax but not every mobile mail client obeys them. Very long body text produces a dense QR that scans slowly on cheap phone cameras; keep the body under ~200 characters for reliable point-and-scan behaviour. Some corporate mobile setups block mailto: links or open a web-based Outlook that ignores prefill parameters. If you rely on the email to reach a shared inbox, always test on both an iPhone and a common Android before printing at scale.
Where Email QR codes get used in practice
Support and feedback are the common deployments. A QR on a product insert, a receipt or a piece of equipment that opens a prefilled support email with the model number already in the body removes the two things that make support tickets slow: finding the address and describing which product it concerns. Education uses them for submissions and queries, and local government puts them on signage for reporting faults — a prefilled subject line like 'Streetlight fault, ref SL-4417' means the inbound mail is already categorised. The operational issue is that a prefilled body is a routing mechanism, and it only works if the receiving inbox actually filters on it. Encoding a reference into the subject is pointless unless someone has set up the rule that acts on it. The other consideration is that mailto: opens the user's own mail client, so the message arrives from whatever address they use personally — which is fine for support and unhelpful if you were hoping to capture a verified business address. For lead capture, a form behind a URL QR collects cleaner data.
Printing a Email QR code so it actually scans
A mailto: payload is short when it carries only an address — often under 40 characters, producing a low-version QR that scans from 1.5 cm. Adding a subject and body changes that quickly: a 200-character body pushes the code to version 9 or above and the modules become fine enough that print quality starts to matter. For posters and signage the useful rule is that scan distance scales with module size, roughly ten times the code's width. A 5 cm QR is comfortable at half a metre; a poster meant to be scanned from two metres away needs a code around 20 cm across. People consistently under-size QR codes on large-format print because the code looks big on a desktop proof and is tiny on the wall. Keep the body text short for a second reason beyond scan reliability: the prefilled message is a hint, not a script, and a long pre-written body reads as spam to the recipient. A subject line plus one sentence performs better than a full template.
Email QR code FAQ
Does it send the email automatically?
- No. The QR opens the user's mail app with the recipient, subject and body prefilled. They still tap Send.
Which mail app opens?
- Whatever the user has as default — Apple Mail, Gmail, Outlook mobile, Spark, ProtonMail. The mailto: standard works with all of them.
Can I include CC and BCC?
- The URI syntax supports it, but not every mobile mail client honours CC/BCC from mailto: URLs. Test before relying on it.
Is the body limited in length?
- Technically the QR can hold thousands of characters, but practical scanning starts to fail past ~500 characters. Keep body copy short and let the user finish the message.
Can I use HTML in the body?
- No — mailto: bodies are plain text with URL-encoded line breaks (%0A). Rich formatting has to happen in the mail app after the user starts writing.
Will this work for newsletter signup?
- Technically yes, but a URL QR pointing to a signup form is usually higher-converting because it captures the email in one tap without opening a mail app.
How do I include a line break in the body?
- Use %0A in the URI (this generator handles URL-encoding automatically when you use the textarea).
Are the email details logged anywhere?
- No. The QR is generated in your browser and the payload is encoded directly into the image — no server sees it.
Email QR field reference
| Field | URI segment | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Recipient | mailto:<address> | One recipient scans reliably |
| Subject | ?subject=<encoded text> | URL-encoded |
| Body | &body=<encoded text> | URL-encoded, %0A for line break |
Full example: mailto:you@example.com?subject=Question&body=Hi%20there
Last updated:
References: RFC 6068 (mailto URI scheme), MDN mailto documentation, Apple iOS URL scheme reference.