Email-to-board not creating comments on replies
Asked by Dan Christensen:

My team and I currently have an email-to-board integration set up between a dedicated support email and our trello board. Everything sent to that email address shows up in our "incoming" column on the trello board.

The issue we're having now is that whenever one of these emails are replied to, or gets replies (even from the original sender of the email), it doesn't update the existing card, but instead creates a new one.

According to <https://support.atlassian.com/trello/docs/creating-cards-by-email/> it should update the existing card with comments instead of creating an entirely new card, but this no longer seems to be working for us - it did for a time, and then stopped working. We've been just dealing with it by deleting the extra cards, but the volume of emails we're getting has increased to the point where it's becoming difficult to manage.

Does anyone know if the "add replies as comments" feature is gone now, or what I can do to get it back?


Answers:
author: Dreamsuite Mike
body: Hi [@Dan Christensen](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1731114)

As far as I am aware from my 10 years of Trello use it has been the case the:

If you email to the board email address, even if a reply, it will always create a new card

If you email the card email address, it keeps the thread within the card

I would really encourage you consider looking at Sendboard as an alternative that will give you so much more than the in-built capability and will definitely solve the issue you are having:

<https://trello.com/power-ups/5d4c0b80452f202510cce4cc/email-for-trello>

[@Christl_Email for Trello](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4784982)

comments: author: Dan Christensen
body: The official documentation I linked in my original post states that it \*should\* work like that. From the documentation:
> The first time a message is sent to the board email address, it will create a new card. If replying to the email the messages will be added to the original card as comments. This could happen when the board email address is added to a long email thread, and it is designed this way to prevent duplicated cards. Only replies to or forwards from the original email which created the card will result up in a comment being added to the card. To maintain the threaded comments in the card, be sure to forward the original email message or add the board email in the BCC field on your responses.

But even when I follow the restrictions stated (replies to or forwards from the original email), it's still just creating new cards.


author: Dreamsuite Mike
body: Hi [@Dan Christensen](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1731114)

You may well be right, I think the best thing you can do is raise a support ticket with Trello and they will give you a conclusive answer

<https://trello.com/contact>

It would be great if you could post any answer you receive as all knowledge shared with the community is useful.

Cheers,

Mike


author: Dan Christensen
body: Hi [@Dreamsuite Mike](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/5153180) - I've submitted a ticket now, with a bit more information as well, and we'll see what they say. I'll try and update this post when I get an answer.

Cheers!


author: Chris Matkaris
body: Hello [@Dan Christensen](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1731114)   

Did you have any like with this?  
I am getting the same behaviour..


author: Dan Christensen
body: Hello [@Chris Matkaris](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4584660)

No luck unfortunately, and we decided it wasn't worth the time to dig into the issue further.

Our integration as it is right now, does the following:

1. An email gets sent to our support email address.
2. An automatic rule runs, that
   1. Forwards the email to the trello board/list
   2. Moves the email from the inbox, to a subfolder in the inbox called "forwarded"

We set it up like this to manage the support inbox a bit better, as there are other rules that run on that mailbox as well, filtering out certain system-generated emails and such, and moving those to other subfolders.

I have a suspicion that it's the forwarding that is causing the issue - because when we then reply to the email, we do so from the "forwarded" subfolder.

But like I said, it was decided that it wasn't worth the time for us to look into it further. Hope the above can at least help you in your troubleshooting.


author: Chris Matkaris
body: I see.. Thank you for sharing your set up!

I am trying to set yup a different use case though.

Have the support told you how Trello Identifies wether the arriving email is a reply or a forward?

I even tried adding "Re:" and "Fwd:" in the beginning of the title, but it did not work :(


author: Dan Christensen
body: [@Chris Matkaris](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4584660) I don't think they did, no. It's been over year since I brought this up, so I can't really remember - but I do remember that I didn't get anything to help my issue at the time.


author: Christl_Email for Trello
body: Hi [@Dan Christensen](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1731114)?

Christl from [SendBoard](https://www.sendboard.com/) here - makers of the [Email for Trello Power-Up](https://trello.com/power-ups/5d4c0b80452f202510cce4cc/sendboard).

Yes I agree [@Dreamsuite Mike](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/5153180) that's how I understand it to work as well. Like he mentioned, it might be worth checking out our Power-Up for an alternative with more functionality - With our Power-Up, replying to emails sent from your board will attached to the correct card and new emails will create new cards. It's also also possible to use your own a custom email address automate sending emails, merge duplicate cards and manage your contacts.

You're welcome to pop over any questions to hello@sendboard.com or simply [add the PowerUp](https://trello.com/power-ups/5d4c0b80452f202510cce4cc/email-for-trello) to give it a try with the free trial.

Hope that helps!

comments: author: Dan Christensen
body: Thank you for your reply. It doesn't really help me though, as I'd like to get the built-in functionality working, and not have to use a 3rd party powerup.

The official documentation in my original question states that it should be working, and it isn't for us. There must be a reason for this, and that's what I'm looking for an answer to.


author: ?i?dem B?y?ka?ik
body: Hi [@Dan Christensen](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1731114),   
Are you sure you weren't using a Power-Up for that? I'd check that out as I don't think that's the way Trello's built-in email-to-board feature works.   

[Hipporello's Service Desk Power-Up](https://trello.com/power-ups/5dd670e21b2a8973687ca15a) has an **advanced email-to-board feature** that allows you to:  

1. Create cards from email  
2. Reply to emails right from the card

New replies update the existing card instead of creating a new one.  

You can also make some detailed configurations and set automations.

![email-to-board.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/266450i4F069BDCAF78322F/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "email-to-board.png")  

Check it out and let me know if you have any questions. We can set up a quick demo session if needed.

comments: author: Dan Christensen
body: 100% sure I'm not using a power-up for it. It's a feature we've been using since before we had unlimited power-ups. The official documentation that I linked in my original post specifically describes that that is how the built-in feature should work.

But even with their stated condition (replies to or forwards from the original email), it doesn't update cards with comments - but instead creates a new one.