Is an e-mail address a URI?

Question

I\'ve tried to figure out whether the format of an e-mail address can be said to comply with the definition of a URI or not, but I\'ve found no explicit confirmation of this so

Answer 1

Yes, but with "mailto:" prefix.

A URI has this form:

<scheme>:<scheme-specific-part>

The <scheme> is "mailto", the <scheme-specific-part> is the address.

For example:

mailto:max@provider.com

is a valid URI.

Answer 2

Per RFC 3986:

A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is a compact sequence of characters that identifies an abstract or physical resource.

The basic syntax components as defined by the RFC:

The generic URI syntax consists of a hierarchical sequence of
components referred to as the scheme, authority, path, query, and
fragment.

  URI         = scheme ":" hier-part [ "?" query ] [ "#" fragment ]

  hier-part   = "//" authority path-abempty
              / path-absolute
              / path-rootless
              / path-empty

So - an e-mail address is not a URI. However mailto:you@server.com is a valid URI.

Answer 3

An e-mail address on it's own - foo@bar.com - I'd say no. A link to an e-mail address - mailto:foo@bar.com - I'd say yes.