Do I need a mail handler?

[Rhiannon Chiacchiaro]

I have email forwarding set up from our company support email. It already pushes emails through and creates a new issue, but I just came across documentation that says you also have create a mail handler to create new issues. Is that actually necessary if it seems like the basic forwarding is doing what I need it to? What is the advantage of using a mail handler? 

(Note: I got the info about mail handlers from here: https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRACLOUD/Creating+Issues+and+Comments+from+Email#CreatingIssuesandCommentsfromEmail-Createanewissueoraddacommenttoanexistingissue

so please don't just regurgitate the info on that page.) 

[petry · Accepted solution]

Since you added the  "jira-service-desk" label to this question, I believe you are referring to the Service Desk plugin, am I right?

The Service Desk plugin will automatically add a Mail Handler to your JIRA related to that Service Desk (project), so there is no need to create a Mail Handler manually in your instance.

Here is how you can set the email channel in Service Desk (which will create the mail handler).

Hope it helps!

Cheers,
Andre 

[Rhiannon Chiacchiaro]

Yes, I do have the Service Desk plugin. Thank you!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

You need a mail handler to have JIRA actually do something with incoming mail.

Without a mail handler, it will read the email and do precisely nothing.   As you're obviously getting emails converted into comments and issues you've already got a handler running.  If you want to do different things, you can edit that one, or add new ones if you have more email addresses.