Is there a way to automate cover colors?
Asked by Ashley Longstaff:

When I add a colored label to a card, I'd like to have the corresponding cover color added to the card. Is there a way to make this automated so I don't have to manually change it every time?


Answers:
author: Blair at Atlassian
body: Hi Ashley,

Right now, card cover automation isn't available within Butler, but we're tracking the demand for it! I'll pass your interest in this on to our team for consideration---let me know if there's any additional info you'd like for me to send their way.  

If you're curious about how our team decides on what requests we work on, this article gives some insight into that process: <http://help.trello.com/article/724-submitting-feature-requests-for-trello>. We've also published a blog post with more detailed and visual information here: <https://blog.trello.com/feature-requests-unite-support-and-product>  

If you'd like to see our latest features and releases you can take a look at our dev board at <http://www.trello.com/dev>. Our mobile boards are available at <https://trello.com/b/5tj4qAvo/trello-ios-app> and <https://trello.com/b/ud59t1fL/trello-android-app>.  

Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns, and have a productive day!

comments: author: Clayton Ritchey
body: I am interested in this as well.


author: Craig Thomler
body: Ditto - this is a basic thing I need.


author: Will Jeffreys
body: Could really do with this


author: Brad Hill
body: I have the same need. Would LOVE this functionality!


author: Eric
body: 100% Same here!


author: Deana Zizzamia
body: Agreed looking for this feature!


author: Client Care
body: definitely a need!!! Please add this feature.


author: ecasteel
body: I'd also love to be able to automate cover color selection in Butler. Note that I don't want the label color applied -- I want to be able to specify which color is applied when I set up the Butler workflow.


author: Nicholas Rouse
body: I'd like to be able to do this too.

Any idea if this will happen anytime soon?


author: Seth McGowan
body: Absolutely interested in access to automating cover color to help organize the board.


author: Robert Weger
body: I would like this feature added to Butler as well. Changing Card Cover colors would be most excellent workflow addition :-)


author: Rob Wilkinson
body: I'm also looking for this automation. Working on a team board, so want the possibility to have card change colour depending on who it is assigned to. Will make monitoring a team board much easier for all participants.


author: Connor Culleeny
body: Please add this.


author: Veronica D
body: I found this post because I was looking for this automation too. It would be great to be able to change or assign card cover colors automatically when you move a card to another list.


author: Mateo Yi-Shu Tsien
body: Me too. This can be very useful, as it makes the card stand out and look more important! Thanks.


author: Alison Starr
body: Another vote for YES PLEASE!


author: Tom Leach
body: YES PLEASE!


author: Cristiano Fontes
body: Add it please, would be super helpful for lead management, for example adding a $ Cover to a high income lead.


author: Giovanni Vecchi
body: Me too!!!


author: Dave Perry
body: I would be interested in this also. Being able to create a Card Button that added a #tag and changed the cover would be very helpful.


author: Oshine
body: Vote yes to automate card covers/colors


author: Kai Jin
body: Yes please


author: Bryn Humberstone
body: Yes to this - even if initially it is just the ability to remove a card cover (it is quite annoying that emails forwarded to a trello board often include an image in the signature block, which then get added to the card's cover.)


author: olena
body: yes please!


author: Hannah Massey
body: Yes please here too!


author: martyn.walmsley
body: I would like to be able to move a card between lists on cover colour change.


author: David Bakkers
body: +1

The ability to set or detect a card's cover size and color, or changes thereto, within Butler workflows would be very useful.


author: Wendy Strain
body: The lack of this feature is primarily what holds me back from upgrading my plan. Cover colors would be helpful, but the ability to automate the addition of card cover images would be ideal. I use specialized card cover images to help me organize projects and activities within my boards. It can take a lot of time to set up a new week adding images manually. To have that cover automatically added when new cards are created would be a huge time saver and worth the upgrade on its own.


author: Erling Hounisen
body: at my companie we need this aswell. we use the cover color to see what HAS to be done today, and so it would be a very nice thing that we could change cover color automaticly with butler.


author: Travis Chalmers
body: Yes please! Would be very helpful.


author: Jennifer Madino
body: I would love this - at minimum I would really like to upload a custom image for the cover to be available in ALL cards on a single board.

Right now I can upload to each card one by one and change the cover but I'd prefer to just upload the media once then pull from my own gallery (instead of the stock images or only colors) when customizing my card.

but automating would be even better!!


author: Sara Lynch
body: I would love this too - it is hard to explain to others to manually change the color each time - it would be great it it could be dependent on a custom field Drop down selection


author: Sara Melca
body: this would be awesome!


author: JP
body: I would love this feature! And I'm the app as well!


author: Sarah Cole
body: This would be SO useful.

(I'm on the Mac app.)


author: srininara
body: This is really a needed feature. Please make it happen.


author: Vicki
body: This would be a really handy feature!


author: Maria Ballestrino
body: This would be really helpful. Please include it in your next update.


author: Zach Noonan
body: Yes please do this! Very helpful for people with ADHD and want things to be color coded automatically!


author: Hanna Seweryn
body: This feature would be super helpful, please please add it.


author: Maik Kade
body: Would absolutley love this as well- We use a custom field (colour coded) for card priority and than adjust the covers manually to same colour for better visibility...if I could automate this by butler (set card cover to custom field colour) would be really cool (and I would need less time to "clean up" my teams cards :-)


author: Addison Newman
body: I could also make great use of this feature!


author: FoxinuhhBox
body: I too want


author: Natalie Robb
body: This would be a really useful feature, please add it!


author: Morgan Balas
body: Please add! :)


author: JP Tomberlin
body: Yes please add this feature!


author: Josh Young
body: I vote yes for this feature to be added to Butler!


author: Ms. Jess
body: I would like this feature, please.


author: Constantino Lozano
body: This feature would definitely be helpful


author: Steve Ragle
body: This was the first automation I reached for, was disappointed that it is still not available despite being requested for over 2 years! This would be a very nice addition, as many people are highly visual and color/covers really help when glancing at a board. Please add this.


author: Wesley Ng-A-Fook
body: Same here. Would love to see this feature.


author: Robert Duncan
body: +1 for this feature, echoing all of the above.


author: Erika Mellmann
body: I'm in. I would love to be able to automate cover changes...right now, I'd like to be able to change the cover to hide the text and give that cloudy (light or dark) look automatically.


author: Emmanuel Br?ton
body: same as above: +1


author: Elizabeth Kahle
body: August 2022 chiming in to beg for this feature please.


author: Michael Delfausse
body: Please add me to the list. Now that you have nullified the extensions which did this, please, please, please consider doing this.


author: Liam
body: Please add this!


author: Lawrence Guerra
body: Wow. It's been over two years since the original posting and this functionality is still missing from Trello. Adding cover automation (color change, cover removal/addition) would be a terrific little tweak to make the whole Trello experience more robust. I can't image that it's a matter of way; it has to be the lack of will...or listening to customer feedback. I know the company I work for is paying for enterprise level access. Responsiveness to (paying) customer feedback/input counts for a lot with these types of applications. That's where we begin to see separation between the middling performers and high-end systems. Please add soon. Thanks.


author: Patrick Wallace
body: [@Atlassian](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4852376) This seems like a very requested feature that would be easily programmed. Where does this feature fall on the roadmap. If you can have "when custom field is set to "x" add the smiley sticker surely you can have ... "change the card cover to green". we want this very badly!


author: Josemi Mejia
body: Still waiting for this feature...


author: Angela Anders
body: Waiting for this automation. Does anyone know if it can done via Zapier?


author: Liam Harrington-Missin
body: yes please.


author: Lewis Melville
body: Ditto, this should be possible.


author: Mike Stevens
body: Desperately keen on this feature. Wild and bizarre that it isn't a thing already.


author: Vianne Heusdens
body: Need!


author: Julia Lords
body: I definitely need this feature.  
Preferably within the automations, so that when the due date/time is scheduled for a particular time, the card cover changes to either an already uploaded image, or it generates a card cover with the time as text on the cover.


author: Tristan F
body: I strongly need this to be added.


author: fernandoluiznemechibli
body: I would really like this, please implement it!!!


author: Mats Berggren
body: Any news on this? It has been four years!


author: Rarus Marcenaria
body: Compartilho da mesma necessidade.


author: Jaimy Nikijuluw
body: I'd love this feature, is there any update?  
It would be so helpful to have a rule that can change the cover color, as well as the display (full card cover versus banner). Hope it gets added soon!


author: David Bakkers
body: Although Butler currently can't change a card's cover directly via an Action, you can do it indirectly using Butler's cool [HTTP requests](https://help.trello.com/article/1203-issuing-http-requests-with-butler) Action to send a suitable PUT request to the [Trello REST API to update the card](https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/trello/rest/api-group-cards/#api-cards-id-put) and set the values you want for the cover.

To do this, create a Butler rule, add the Trigger you want, then add an Action of the type Content and the sub-type *'put to url with payload'.*

The url would be the endpoint for cards, followed by the [variable](https://help.trello.com/article/1157-variables) that will be substituted by Butler with the ID of the card you want to alter, which would be:

```
https://api.trello.com/1/cards/{cardid}
```

and the payload would be the JSON formatted request that would contain your key, token, and the settings you want for that card's cover. For example, this payload would change the card's cover to green, full size:

```
{"key" : "[your_rest_key_here]","token" : "[your_rest_token_here]","cover" : {"color" : "green","size" : "full" }}
```

Here is the resulting Action:

![Trello Butler card cover Action.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/136751i0FAB127D5DCA67A9/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Trello Butler card cover Action.png")

Here is an example of that Action being triggered when a new card is created on the board:

![Trello Butler card cover rule #1.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/136748i9D3CF0C7C947E4A8/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Trello Butler card cover rule #1.png")

Here is a closer look at the rule, showing the Action in more detail:

![Trello Butler card cover rule #2.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/136749i83F203FB7372E371/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Trello Butler card cover rule #2.png")

By altering the HTTP request's payload, you could set the card cover's color, size, text brightness etc, or even add an Unsplash image.

comments: author: derekantrican
body: This is fantastic! While Trello's card covers don't exactly result in the appearance I want, this definitely will get you there


author: Sarah Cole
body: Hey, thanks for this workaround!

I'm struggling to get this to work but perhaps I'm making a mistake with the API codes---do the REST API values differ from the regular API values I've retrieved from <https://trello.com/app-key>?

Any advice appreciated.

\*\*\*

EDIT: Never mind, it started working fine a while after I posted this!


author: Rosa Clark
body: Darn. It's not working for me. Here is the code. Thoughts about what I am doing wrong? Thanks


author: Rosa Clark
body: Are the api and regular keys different?


author: Sarah Cole
body: [@Rosa Clark](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4502524) No, that was the right key in the end. I've replied to your other comment with suggestions btw.


author: Sarah Cole
body: [@David Bakkers](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1575730) Hi David, thanks so much for this endlessly useful workaround.

I was just wondering if you have a similar technique for automating the removal of card covers? I've tried a few approaches using bits from the REST API documentation but haven't had any success yet. No problem if not---I'm sure I'll get it eventually.


author: David Bakkers
body: [@Sarah Cole](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4541723)

The cover is removed by 'resetting' all the values for the whole cover, like this:

```
{"key" : "[your_rest_key_here]","token" : "[your_rest_token_here]","cover" : ""}
```


author: Sarah Cole
body: [@David Bakkers](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1575730) Brilliant, that makes complete sense now you say it. Thank you very much for your help.


author: Joe Adevai
body: PLEASE add this automation for Covers!


author: Andy Streim
body: I tried using the url above as well as my specific tokens to apply this rule/automation but I keep getting back the "400 Error parsing body". Any ideas as to how to get past this error?


author: Nick Pye
body: Please add this.

It's been two years since the original request and a lot of time and effort has been expended by people trying workarounds.

I'm no techi so all that API and code stuff turns me off.

Please just do it. It seems a fundamental ommission.

comments: author: Elizabeth Kahle
body: It *has* been two years. It's been so long, I actually left. I use Trello for very different, low level things now. I moved over to Notion, which has a great -highlight all and bulk change properties- function. Extremely useful!


author: Nick Pye
body: Thanks for the tip, Elizabeth. I'll check Notion out now. ?


author: Wendy Goodwin
body: PLEASE, PLEASE add this ability! The more visual you can make these cards, the more intuitive they will be and the faster we can process them. If the purpose of automations is to speed up our work flow, having the ability to visually categorize our cards dramatically improve our efficiency.

comments: author: Thea Arias
body: agreed and agreed


author: Marcus
body: Here is an adaption of David Bakkers' excellent workaround: although David's fix worked for me in that it "did what it said on the tin", this isn't quite what I wanted - what I actually wanted was to apply a "header" or "partial" cover rather than a "full". As you can see, I'm struggling to give a precise name to the type of header that I want and that same problem gave me grief when it came to trying to adapt the "payload"; I ***unsuccessfully*** tried updating the "cover" def' as follows:  
{"color" : "green","size" : "part" }

{"color" : "green","size" : "partial" }

{"color" : "green","size" : "header" }

As I say, none of these attempts worked so I thought "what the hell, let's just see if the default works" and I'm glad to report that this was ***successful*** with the simple:

{"color" : "green"}

The down-side to all of this is that this fix is dependent upon the current Atlassian implementation of the \[Create a Rule\] feature which I guess could change at any time.

comments: author: David Bakkers
body: Hello [@Marcus](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4331447)

The cover size can be set to one of two values: 'normal' or 'full', with normal being the default if you don't define a size.

To know more about the other settings for the cover, including putting a picture inside the cover or setting the brightness of the text compared to the background, refer to the [Update a Card section](https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/trello/rest/api-group-cards/#api-cards-id-put) of the Trello REST API documentation page.


author: THIAGO MANGANELLI
body: [@David Bakkers](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1575730) it did not work for me I tried everything


author: Sarah Cole
body: [@THIAGO MANGANELLI](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4529348) I couldn't get it to work but I left the new rules in place and they started working within a couple of days. Not sure what caused the delay, but it's fine now. Perhaps you have a similar issue?


author: Rosa Clark
body: [@Sarah Cole](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4541723) Hi, i could not get this to work at all. I want the card cover to turn green when a certain label is applied. I got the API key from <https://trello.com/app-key> and I can manually generated the token from the link on the same page. Any help would be great. Thanks

![trello api.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/161351i03D80F237FA09EC0/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "trello api.png")


author: Sarah Cole
body: [@Rosa Clark](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4502524) Hi! The code does look right to me. When did you set this up and test it? Yesterday? Trello has been down on and off over the last couple of days and that's affected the automation---I found that even simple rules weren't working as expected.

If so, maybe delete it and try setting it up again today.

I did find that it took a day or so for the card cover rule to start working for me after I set it up anyway. No idea why, maybe something to do with the API? I'll try setting up your rule shortly to see if I can replicate though, and report back!


author: Rosa Clark
body: [@Sarah Cole](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4541723) Thanks for the reply. I just turned the rule back on and will see if it works. Did you find anything when you tested the rule?


author: Rosa Clark
body: [@Sarah Cole](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/2967133) gaaahhh.... No go. It's been two days and I still get the error message "Butler could not run your rule when the yellow "Channel: Email" label is added to a card by anyone, put to URL". Oh well, I tried! Thanks for the replies.


author: David Bakkers
body: Hello [@Rosa Clark](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4502524)

I can see something wrong. At the end of your token there is a right square bracket:

![trello api.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/162957iB8B608B8FC7DED04/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "trello api.png")

Keys and tokens contain only alphanumeric values (letters and numbers), like this:
> Key: 00d2ac3c23e82d32545537e54feafb22  
> Token: 94a658cd2a6b32083ddeeff90cb721f7de6801e2a7d0f3fecadef5262fa0f351

so that square bracket should not be there.

My use of square brackets for *\[your_rest_key_here\]* and *\[your_rest_token_here\]* was just for demarcation. The actual put to url payload would be:

```
{"key" : "00d2ac3c23e82d32545537e54feafb22","token" : "94a658cd2a6b32083ddeeff90cb721f7de6801e2a7d0f3fecadef5262fa0f351","cover" : {"color" : "green","size" : "normal" }}
```


author: Sarah Cole
body: Good spot [@David Bakkers](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1575730)! I missed that completely---maybe it's time for new glasses...


author: Rosa Clark
body: ah-ha! [@David Bakkers](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1575730) that's a cut \& paste error. OK, I'll give it a try. TYVM


author: Rosa Clark
body: It worked [@Sarah Cole](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/2967133) and [@David Bakkers](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1575730) ! Thanks both for your help.


author: Jonathan Moore
body: [@David Bakkers](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1575730) [@Sarah Cole](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/2967133) Instead of making a new post on this, I figured adding on to this conversation might be valuable for others like me who find this thread from Google (especially since it's so fresh!)  

I'm looking for a variant on using this API option to add a custom cover that's pulled from an Imgur album I made of various swatches to add custom cover color (so I don't have to worry about running out of the ones available from the Colors palette - is that also doable using a similar command?

Edit - Since I'm currently using the existing cover colors as a stopgap, what's the list of colors? I can see two "greens" and two "blues" - couldn't get any answers when I inspected the element in Chrome


author: David Bakkers
body: [@Jonathan Moore](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4588695)

Refer to the [Update a Card section of the Trello REST API documentation](https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/trello/rest/api-group-cards/#api-cards-id-put), which documents all the cover settings, including the different colors and how to use images.

Using an image located anywhere other than [Unsplash](https://images.unsplash.com) for the cover is not easy, since it will require that the image is already attached to the card and you know its unique attachment ID, which will require a pre-lookup of that ID using the REST API via a separate call.


author: Thomas
body: [@David Bakkers](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1575730)

How would you do that exactly?

I mean, I could create template (o reference) cards and in some way copy the cover image from there?

I would really appreciate if you could give me some more hints/help.

Thanks in advance


author: suzie
body: \^ Same question!


author: Steve Kessler
body: I NEED to automate color covers when they move lists.


author: RH
body: Yes Please Add!!!

I've been waiting for this for far to long!

Give us some colors!!!!


author: Doug Cranmer
body: +1 to this request to automate card covers. The REST API method listed above seems to have stopped working.


author: Rosa Clark
body: Hello [@David Bakkers](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1575730) this isn't working anymore. Do you or anyone know if Trello made some back end changes that would cause this workaround to fail?


author: Maria Ballestrino
body: I would also love it if this feature could be added!


author: PouwelsAB
body: Very interested also !


author: James Russo
body: Yes please! Automation for card covers would be good!


author: Thea Arias
body: pls


author: Sara Lynch
body: Still wanting this - still waiting for this (it has been a while ..... )   
(I would like to use a custom Picklist from the card to change the Cover color automatically ) - or a date field (ie overdue / approaching etc)  
(Using 'Label' would be difficult to automate when a card could have more than 1 label)


author: Wiktor Gruszczy?ski
body: DO IT  

I would love to link color with word or code i use in card ex. MAIL or RAPORT


author: Mike Stevens
body: Badly want this!