How to send an email to Trello Every route that works, and one without.

Trello gives every board its own email address. Anything you send to it becomes a card. Here is how to find the address, what it does with your email, and the other routes for when it falls short.

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

I build Driftto, an iPhone app that adds new cards to a Trello list. A lot of people email themselves a thought to get it into Trello, so I read through every way email gets in and where each one stops. If you came from email to Notion, the shape is the same, but Trello does more of it for you.

In October 2026 I went through Atlassian's help page on creating cards by email, its older post on the same feature, and the pages of Zapier, Make, SendBoard and one Gmail add-on. What a route does or skips comes from those pages. Where a page doesn't say, I say so.

The short answer

To email Trello, send a message to your board's own address: open the board menu, choose Email-to-board and copy the address. The subject becomes the card title, the body becomes the description, and attachments come along. Forwarding to inbox@app.trello.com works too and lands in your Trello Inbox. Zapier and Gmail add-ons are the other routes.

Route 1: your board's own email address

Every board has one address, and each member gets their own. This is the route most people mean by email to Trello, and it needs no extra tool. Finding the address takes four steps.

1. 01

   Open the board

   Go to the board the cards should land on.

2. 02

   Open the board menu

   The menu is on the board itself.

3. 03

   Choose Email-to-board

   That opens the settings for this board's address.

4. 04

   Copy the address

   It is in the field called Email address for this board. Save it as a contact in your mail app, so it is one tap to pick.

Atlassian's page doesn't give steps for the mobile app. Do this part on a computer once, then use the address from any mail app.

What the address does with your email

• Subject

  It becomes the card title.

• Body

  It becomes the description. Images in the body are added as attachments.

• Attachments

  They are added to the card. The whole email, attachments included, can be 10 MB at most. A larger email creates no card, and your mail server may send you a failure notice.

• Labels

  Put #labelname, #labelcolor or #labelnumber in the subject. For a label with several words, join them or use underscores: #To_Do. If several labels share a name or color, only the first is added.

• Members

  Put a member's Trello @username in the subject, or on its own line in the body. You can also put their Trello email address in To or CC.

• Due date

  Atlassian's page documents no way to set one by hand in the email. With the AI summary on, it creates a due date when it finds one in the message.

• Which list

  Atlassian's 2013 post says the card lands at the bottom of the first list, and that you can change the list and position in the board's email settings. The current help page doesn't say, so check the setting on your board.

• AI summary

  A switch in the same settings. Turned on, the title summarizes the subject, the description summarizes the body, and Trello adds a checklist of action items when there are any. It runs once, when the card is made, and reads only the first 16,384 characters. Atlassian says to review the output before you share it.

• The original

  Trello keeps a copy of each email on its servers for 90 days, and the original email is attached to the card.

Route 2: your Trello Inbox

The Inbox is your personal place in Trello for cards, reached from the bottom bar of any board. You can send or forward to inbox@app.trello.com, as long as you send from the email address you use to log in to Trello. If your Atlassian account uses another address, use your unique Inbox address instead. It works from any email address.

To find that address, open any board, choose Inbox in the bottom bar, open the Inbox menu, choose Add from email, then More options. It is under Send from any email address. Subject, body and attachments map the same way as on a board. Atlassian notes that conversion can take a few minutes, and that if the short address fails, the unique one is the fallback.

Replies, resets and who can use an address

A board address is yours. Cards and comments made through it show as you, and Atlassian says that if you share the address, others can create cards or comments as you. The same goes for your unique Inbox address. If an address leaks, use Reset email address in the same menu. The old one stops working.

Replies need care. For seven days after a card is made from an email, a reply that includes the board address becomes a comment on that card. After seven days it makes a new card. To add a comment from a thread, reply with the board address as a recipient, forward the original to the board address, or put the address in BCC. Sending an email to a card's own address, found under Share on the card back, also makes a comment. That works for board cards, not Inbox cards.

Route 3: a Gmail add-on

Atlassian's email help page doesn't mention Gmail or Outlook, and I found no Atlassian page for either. What exists is third-party. Another Trello for Gmail, by Genti Tola, is in the Google Workspace Marketplace. Its listing says it creates Trello cards or adds comments to existing cards from Gmail, uploads attachments to the card, and remembers the last board and list you picked. It asks for permission to read your Gmail messages while it runs. The listing shows no price, 4.6 stars from 10 ratings, over 2,000 users, and an update on 19 March 2025.

The difference from the email address is that you open the email, press a button, pick a board and list, and the card is made. You choose the list each time instead of relying on one. The email stays where it is. I found no Outlook add-in documented anywhere. In Outlook, the route that works is a forward to the board address.

Route 4: Zapier or Make

An automation tool watches your mail and makes the card for you. Zapier's Gmail and Trello page lists three Gmail triggers that fit: New Email, New Starred Email, and New Email Matching Search, which fires on emails that match a search you write. Its Trello Create Card action needs a board, a list and a name. It can also take a description, labels, a member, start and due dates, a file, a URL and checklist items.

On the free plan Zapier gives you 100 tasks a month, two-step Zaps only (one trigger, one action), and a check every 15 minutes. Its Professional plan starts at 750 tasks a month, $19.99 a month billed yearly or $29.99 billed monthly. Make's Trello page lists a Create a Card module. The page doesn't show its fields, and says board and list IDs can only be obtained through triggers. Make's pricing page says the Free plan has 1,000 credits a month. I found neither page naming a ready Gmail to Trello template.

Use this route when you want a rule instead of a habit: every email with a star, or every email that matches a search, becomes a card on a set list. The cost is setup, and a monthly task count to watch.

A shared address for other people

Atlassian advises against giving your board address to anyone, since mail sent to it is added under your profile. For outside senders, SendBoard's page points to its own Power-Up. It says it gives a board a public email address that anyone can use to create cards, and that you can reply to emails from inside Trello. The page states no price and no limits. Use it for a support or order address, not for your own notes.

The routes, side by side

The route without email

Every route above starts with an email, and many of those emails are ones you write to yourself: you think of something, you have no app open, so you mail it and sort it later. If that is your case, you can skip the email.

Driftto takes no email and forwards none. It never reads your inbox or your boards. What it does is smaller: it opens to a typing field, you type or say the thought, and you tap Trello. At setup you pick a board and then a list on it, once. A one-line note becomes the card name. A longer note keeps its first line as the name and lands whole in the description. A due date is a date, with no time. There is no photo.

It only writes new cards. It never edits, moves or completes one, and it works on iPhone only. You can also say "Hey Siri, new capture in Driftto" to send to the destination you set for Siri, or open the capture screen from a widget or the Control Center. It does not help with the email someone else sent you. For that, use the routes above.

If you are still deciding whether Trello is the place at all, I compared it with another tool in Notion vs Trello.

Which route I'd pick

For email you receive, use the board address. Save it as a contact, forward the email, and put #label or @name in the subject when you need them. It costs nothing extra by Atlassian's page, and it keeps the original email on the card. If most of your mail is Gmail and you want to choose the list each time, try the Gmail add-on. Use Zapier or Make only when a rule fits, such as every starred email.

If you want a card without an email at all, and the thought is your own, skip the mail and put it straight on the list.

Questions

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