Do NOT delete from email inbox when using mail handler?

Joseph_Rodriguez

I have setup an IMAP Mail Handler in Jira to catch incoming emails to my Zoho email, and Jira creates a Task for it and puts it in a specific Project.

It works but I have 1 major problem: The email gets deleted from my Zoho inbox! Now there is no way for me to reply to the email and keep track of the thread.

Is there a way for Jira not to delete the email? 

Andy Heinzer

Hi Joseph,

I understand that you're using Jira Cloud, and you are finding that connecting a Jira Core/Software mail handler to your IMAP account is deleting the messages that Jira processes.

I tried to recreate this behavior in my own Cloud site, however so far I have not been able to replicate your exact behavior here. In my testing I used both a Jira Service Desk (JSD) mail handler AND a Cloud mail handler (for Core and Software projects).  When I tested this I did one at a time, and remove the account from one before testing the other.  I did note there was a difference here in that JSD left the message in the inbox, whereas the other mail handler archived this message.  I tested this with a Gmail account, using IMAP as well.  In my testing neither actually deleted the message, they both do mark the message as read when processed.

So I suspect that Jira Cloud is not technically deleting the message here from you inbox, but it is certainly marking it as read and potentially then marking this as moved or archived to remove it from the inbox.  Perhaps this is a setting with the email service, Zoho, in this case.  It might help if you check out their documentation on Zoho Mail IMAP expunge options.  I suspect that unchecking the auto-expunge option there could help.  I'm not sure where that message will go in a Zoho IMAP mailbox when it is moved out of the inbox.  Perhaps for that mail server sees messages moved from the inbox as being placed into a trash folder.  In my Gmail, I do not see this message in the trash.  But I can still see it when I go to the 'All Mail' option, which isn't exactly any folder due to Gmail's insistence on using labels for mail organization instead.  But anyways, see if turning off the auto-expunge might help keep your message on the server after Jira processes it.

On a side note, are you using the same mailbox for your own email as the same mailbox Jira is checking to create issues?  If so, I think you might be using this in a manner outside the way the mail handlers are designed to work with Jira.  Typically we have an expectation that there will not be other mail clients reading these messages before Jira gets the chance to.  In such cases you might find that Jira won't be able to process the messages that you read before it checks the mailbox.  Which might be a factor in that your mail client could also be expunging this message because Jira has moved it out of the inbox.

Either way, in my view it seems like this is an IMAP expunge option setting that I hope is adjustable in your mail server.  Try this and let me know the results.

Andy