Default email application (unknown)

[joed16199110]

I used to be able to email directly out of Adobe Acrobat Reader when I had Windows 7 and Outlook 2010.  I completed a systems upgrade not long ago to Windows 10 and Outlook 2016.  Now when I go to email a PDF out of Acrobat Reader (Version 2019.010.20099), I see under "Send as Attachment", Default email application (unknown).  I have Outlook 2016 set as my default Mail client under Default Apps.

I have also tried to uninstall and reinstall Adobe Acrobat Reader but that didn't help.  Also, when I go to Preferences within Adobe Acrobat Reader, where I used to see Default Email Application (Outlook 2010), all it says is Default Email Application; it does not indicate a specific application.

Please help!

Thanks!

[AnandSri]

Hello Joed,

We're sorry for the trouble you had with Adobe Reader, try adding the default email application as Outlook 2016 from Edit>Preferences>Email accounts.

Remove the current email account, reboot the machine and add the new email account and check.

You may also try the solution shared in the help article and see if that works for you How to use the email icon to directly send file as attachment

Let us know how it goes and share your observation.

Thanks,

Anand Sri.

[joed16199110]

Thank you Anand.  My Outlook profile is an exchange mailbox and I see in the preferences I can only add via IMAP.

Furthermore, I went into my registry and cleared all mail clients with the except of Microsoft Outlook, yet Adobe Acrobat Reader DC is still saying the default mail application is unknown.  I also restarted my computer after modifying the registry.

I also downloaded the registry file that you sent to me in your link and when I attempt to email that way, I get, "An error occurred while sending mail."

Please advise on the next steps.

Thanks!

[joed16199110]

Anand,

I configured my Preferences in Adobe Acrobat Reader DC with an IMAP account and am now getting the following error message:

Please advise.

Thanks!

[AnandSri]

Hello Joed,

Is this your personal machine or an office machine? The message appears when you add Gmail/yahoo etc email client.

Use Acrobat cleaner tool once to remove Adobe Reader Download Adobe Reader and Acrobat Cleaner Tool - Adobe Labs

Reboot the machine, install Adobe Reader from Adobe - Adobe Acrobat Reader DC Distribution

Then try adding Outlook as email client and check.

Thanks,

Anand Sri.

[joed16199110]

This is a business machine.  Also, would it help to know that I am using O365 Business?

[joed16199110 · Accepted solution]

I'm marking this as closed.

The solution was to go to portal.office.com and login with the appropriate credentials.  Then you select the option to install software (basically re-installing Office suite).  I set up my Outlook again and Adobe was able to act appropriately and I was able to send PDF's directly out of there. 

[AnandSri]

Thanks for sharing the steps to fix the issue.

Glad to hear that the issue got fixed. Feel free to update this discussion for any further assistance.

Thanks,

Anand Sri.

[jan_0268]

This solution worked for my client. But after few days the problem re-appeared. So now it's still not possible to mail from Acrobat Reader.

[jeromes15872007]

Look at all the effort being prescribing for one person to be able to e-mail a form from their desk! We're a small nonprofit, and all we want to do is equip a bunch of our volunteers with an Adobe form with a send e-mail button. But if each of them would have to jump through all these hoops just to use this feature this means the idea is dead on arrival. We'll have to stay with the old way of no button, save the form, and then attach it to an e-mail. In just trying to use the button myself, I can't get "Default e-mail" to work at all, and although I can get "Use Webmail" to work it saves the e-mail as a draft, and then I have to go into the draft folder and release it from there. Again, for us to try to get a bunch of volunteers to do this is not going to work. Also note that AnandSri's link below to a "fix" requires a registry change. I recall back in the 90s when the great granddaddy of Windows 10, Windows NT came out. We were advised to never change the registry if you don't absolutely have to, and I think that was excellect advice. Plus, we obviously can't prescribe that for a crew of volunteers. 

[MeowMix64]

Hi Ya'll!

Sorry for bumping this up but I've had the same issue happen to me lately on a client's PC.  This answer kinda helped, but I found out that there's a way to make sure everything works!

It turns out that the version of Reader and Office needs to be the same arch type.  In my case, the version of reader was installed in /Program Files (x86)/ but the version of office I just downloaded was x64.  Even though I had Windows 10 set to open outlook by default, Adobe Reader would still not find a default mail app to open.

The fix in this case was to make sure I download the 32-bit installer of Office. (In my case, It was Office 2019, but seems to be the same for older versions as well).  Since the 32-bit installer places Outlook into the Program Files (x86) folder, Reader is able to see and open outlook like normal again.

I hope this helps out!

[lironl87718391]

Could you please re-open this case, as it's 2025 and I have a similar problem with Acrobat Reader and Windows 11.

In my case,  I want to use a preferred e-mail program, e.g. Outlook (new), but Adobe Reader seems to ignore everything I set up in Windows settings and there is no way to set this in Adboe Reader itself.   If I click on the Email button in Adobe Reader and choose the default (Email Application (Unknown)), Acrobat Reader launches Mozilla Thunderbird to send the e-mail.  Nothing I can do (e.g. any settings in Windows or Acrobat itself) will make it use anything else, except uninstalling Thunderbird, in which case it launches Microsoft Outlook (classic), and then nothing I can do would change it to another e-mail program of my choice.  However, if I reinstall Thunderbird, it switches back to using Thunderbird.

These are the steps I have tried to fix this:

* Opened Default apps under Settings (for Windows 11) and

  - Changed all possible settings that could be set to Outlook (new) to Outlook (new).

  - Changed all possible settings that are set to Thunderbird to Outlook (new), or something else.

* Uninstalled Acrobat Reader

* Ran the Acrocleaner tool, both the 64 bit and 32 bit version (cleans up any traces of Acrobat or Acrobat Reader not removed by uninstalling it).

* Restarted my PC after each time I ran Acrocleaner

* Reinstalled Acrobat Reader

Made no difference.

All of the above was for Acrobat Reader (64 bit).  However, I also followed @MeowMix64 's advice and replaced the 64 bit version of Acrobat Reader with the 32 bit version and that didn't help either.

I've also checked in Acrobat Reader's preference -> Email accounts.  There is no way of setting what is the default e-mail program.  You can only add Gmail accounts (after which it tries to connect to a Gmail account) or login details for IMAP based e-mail accounts.

All I want is for Acrobat to use a default e-mail program as set by the Windows operating system, and if that's not possible, to set this in Acrobat Reader itself.  However, as far as I can tell, Acrobat Reader decides on its own what e-mail program to use, and I can't find any way of telling it to do anything else, or to follow any user settable setting in Windows or Acrobat Reader.

Could you please re-open this case and please fix this.  It's nearly six years later!!!