Using email to comment on an issue creates a new ticket

Question

Some of our team members prefer to use Outlook emails to add new comments to issues -- instead of just adding a comment/internal comment in Jira.

When we reply to the same email thread where the issue was created, as long as our project's email is in the To or cc fields and the issue key is included in the subject line, a comment is successfully added ...

BUT when we write a new email, still including the help desk email address and correct issue key, a whole new issue is created.

For the time being we are sticking to commenting via the original email threads, but does anyone know why creating a new email would throw Jira off and fail to add a new comment?

Here are some of our mail settings and permissions for the project:

Jack Brickey · Accepted Answer

Hi @Michael Blackmon ,

the handling of new vs. comment on existing has always been a bit of a confusing behavior and to complicate things further the behavior has changed over time. For sure, in the past, i was able to create a new email and use the issue key and summary in the subject and see a comment added. I was doing this purely as a test to better understand how the email handler was processing emails for new ticket vs. adding a comment. I suspect it has to do with metadata in the email and I suspect continued changes to the email handler is resulting in different corner case behaviors. With that said, is there a reason why you would want to create a new email when replying to an existing issue? Certainly, that is a corner case, and as you have found produces undesirable results.