Trello email-to-board: replies to archived cards?

Question

Hello team! Some quick background here:

* Desired state* I aspire to work almost completely outside my inbox -- by forwarding all my email to Trello!

* Desired email / Trello workflows* For cards that require no reply* Archive the card

* For cards that require work later on* Move to a list in my Trello board

* For cards that require a reply* Reply in Gmail (or via SendBoard power-up)
* Archive card
* When a reply is received, have a card (either the original becoming unarchived, or a new "duplicate" card) appear in my Trello board

* Challenge* Scenarios 1 and 2 above work perfectly, but scenario 3 is breaking 😭😭
* For scenario 3, once a card is archived all future replies to it get added as comments that I never see as the card remains archived.
* This appear to be by design, as Trello aims to avoid "duplicated cards" (per this article). But in my scenario duplicate cards are desirable!

* Additional context* I'm currently using Gmail's mail forwarding feature (described here) to forward all emails to my Trello board's email address

Would very much appreciate any POV here! Is there a settings or workflow update that could help me accomplish my desired workflow?

Thanks so much for your help!

No Name_8wgmb0 · Answer

Mark -- thanks for the reply! Some quick reactions:

* I started this experiment by enabling SendBoard, then decided to downgrade to Trello's native email-to-board functionality (as I hadn't gotten comfortable with Trello's email composition UI)
* Great to know that SendBoard automatically unarchives cards!
* Helpful to know that Trello Butler automation may be worth looking into, although disappointing to hear you didn't find a solution at first glance

I'll continue experimenting here! Will update this thread as I make progress.

Mark Fowles · Answer

Hi There.

I noticed you mentioned the SendBoard Power-Up, but from your description you don't seem to be using it.

When using SendBoards Email for Trello Power-Up, if an archived card receives a reply, it will automatically be added back to the board with the reply added as a comment.

If you're not wanting to actually send emails from Trello, unarchiving a card when a comment is added does seem like something you should be able to do with an automation. But I've just had a brief look and it doesn't seem like it possible. Perhaps I'm missing something though.

Mark