Email to Asana: every route that works And one that skips the email.

Asana has more ways to turn an email into a task than most apps, and the forum answers are spread over five threads. Here is each route, what it carries over, and what it leaves behind.

Jacky Fakkeldij Building Driftto, on his own · Updated 23 October 2026

I build Driftto, an iPhone app that puts a new note into Asana as a task. People who find it ask about email first, so I read what Asana says about getting email in, and wrote it down in one place. I covered the apps around Asana in the best Asana integrations; this page is only about email.

In October 2026 I went through Asana's app pages for Gmail and Outlook, its email tips and pricing pages, five threads on Asana's forum, and the Zapier and Make pages. Asana's help article on email tasks is built with JavaScript and gave me no text, so for the address rules I used Asana's own tips page and the forum, where other users answer. Where a page doesn't say, I say so.

The short answer

Every Asana project has its own email address, x+projectID@mail.asana.com, and you have a personal one, x@mail.asana.com. Mail sent there becomes a task: subject as the name, body as the description. The Gmail and Outlook add-ins build a task from an open email, and Zapier or Make can do it by rule.

Route 1: the project's email address

Each project has a unique address. It looks like x+12345678@mail.asana.com, where the number is the project's ID, the one in its web address. In Asana you find it under Import and then Email in the project's menu; the forum answers describe the menu as "Import > Email (or similar)". Save it as a contact and forward to it, or send a new email.

What arrives, going by the forum answers: the subject becomes the task name, the body becomes the description, and file attachments are added to the task. The task lands in the project's first section. You may have to refresh Asana before you see it.

The limits are worth knowing before you set it up. Users report that the sender has to be at least an editor of the project, and that mail from someone who is not simply doesn't appear, with no error. The email can't set a due date; the one workaround on the forum is a third-party tool. Only real file attachments come across, not images embedded in the body, and an image-heavy signature turns into separate files in the project.

Route 2: your personal address, for My Tasks

x@mail.asana.com is the short one. Asana's tips page says that forwarding an email there creates a task assigned to you, in the Asana workspace linked to your email address. A new email written to it works too: the subject line becomes the task name and the body becomes the task description.

The address ties the task to your own Asana account, so send from the email address you signed up with. The tips page doesn't say what happens to attachments on this route, or whether the subject-and-body mapping holds for a forwarded email as well as a new one.

Route 3: the Gmail add-on

Asana's Gmail add-on adds an Asana icon to the panel beside an open email. Click it, sign in, and choose to create a new task from the message. The new task carries context from the email. If you tick "Sync future replies to this task", the rest of the thread keeps flowing into the task as it grows, which no address route does.

You install it from the Google Workspace Marketplace and link your Gmail account to your Asana account. If you are on a team, an admin can install it for everyone, which Asana says can take up to seven days to show up, and Gmail has to be allowed in the Admin Console's App Management. Asana's page doesn't list which task fields it fills in, doesn't mention attachments, and doesn't give a price for the add-on.

Route 4: the Outlook add-in

The Outlook add-in has two buttons. Create Task makes a task from an email. Open Asana Add-in adds the email as a comment on a task that already exists. Either one opens a side pane where you finish the job, and you can upload the email's file attachments there.

It needs a Microsoft 365 subscription and access to Microsoft AppSource, and it runs in Outlook on the web, Outlook 2021 for Windows and Outlook 2019 for Mac. Admins can install it for the whole organization. As with Gmail, the page doesn't say which part of the email lands where, and has no price. Asana's pricing page speaks of more than 100 free integrations, but doesn't name this one.

Route 5: Zapier or Make

If you want a rule instead of a click, such as every mail from one sender, an automation tool can do it. Zapier gives you an inbound address of its own, and a new email there can start a Zap that runs Asana's Create Task action. That action needs a workspace and a task name; the description, assignee, followers, tags and custom fields are optional. Map them from the email in the Zap.

Zapier's Free plan allows 100 tasks a month and two-step Zaps only, which is enough for one trigger and one action. The lowest Professional tier is 750 tasks a month, at $19.99 a month billed yearly or $29.99 billed monthly. Make's Free plan gives 1,000 credits a month. Make's Asana page says it can create tasks from incoming emails, but it didn't name the module, so I can't tell you more about it. In both tools you own the mapping, and a run that fails does so in a dashboard you may never open.

The routes, side by side

When the email is really a note to yourself

Many people reach for these routes for a different reason. The email isn't from a client or a teammate. It is a thought they mailed to themselves because the mail app was the nearest text box. If that is you, every route above is a long way round: a message to send, a subject to fill in, a task to find later.

Driftto takes the email out of it. It opens to a capture field with the keyboard already up. You type or speak a note, tap Asana and the project you picked in setup, and it arrives as a new task there. The whole note becomes the task name, a photo is attached to the task, and a section is set if you chose one. Nothing goes into the description, and Driftto sets no assignee.

It is small on purpose. Driftto never reads, forwards or receives email, there is no address to send to, and it never edits or moves a task that already exists. If you need messages other people sent you turned into tasks, use routes one to five. The same idea works for other tools: see email to Notion, or Airtable vs Asana if you are still choosing where tasks should live.

Which route I'd pick

For mail that other people send, start with the project address: it needs no install and keeps the subject and the file attachments. Check first that every sender is an editor of the project. If you work in Gmail or Outlook all day, the add-in is the better fit, because you choose what becomes a task and, in Gmail, the thread can follow it.

Use Zapier or Make when a rule should do the work, and when you are willing to check that the rule still runs. And if most of what you forward is you, writing to yourself, stop sending mail and put the note straight into the project.

Questions

Driftto is in the App Store now. The yearly plan starts with a free week.