Turning trello attachments into email attachments

[R M]

Hello,

I have a board that tracks client contacts. Quite often, I need to send an email to a client based on the information in the card. To do this efficiently I've made a butler card button that sends me a draft, which I review, edit, and send along to the client. So far so good.

However, one of the steps I need to do is take all the documents attached to the card, and attach them to the email.

I would have thought that transferring attachments from a trello card to an email  would be a drag-and-drop process (just as putting attachments into trello is drag-and-drop). However, it is not to be. I guess this is because Trello "attachments" are not actually attachments as we are accustomed to thinking of them in emails. They're links.

So I have to shift-click a link, then drag from my Downloads folder to the email, then delete the copy in the Downloads folder. When doing many of these in a short time, and trying to keep track of what needs to be kept and deleted while also managing disk space, this gets really tedious.

Unfortunately, the Trello for Mac desktop app does not abstract the download process in drag-and-drop fashion. So even there, I can drag-and-drop in, but can't drag-and-drop out.

My questions:

* Is there a power-up that enables drag-and-drop of attachments _out_ of a card into another application?

* Can butler somehow be programmed to attach documents in its send-email action?

* Is there any other functionality out there that I might be missing that will make this easier?

Thanks!

[milynnus · Accepted solution]

@R M 

I worked with several power ups on email. 
Contalist allows you to send emails with all attachments. You can also look at SendBoard. It probably handles this as well. 
Then there is Hipporello where you can your own power up which can include all attachments from Trello card as part of conversation for a card. 

[R M]

Thanks! I’ll check these options out. 

[R M]

Thank you milynnus for these suggestions. They did not work out for me, but for most other use cases they would probably work well.

In my particular case, I was not fully comfortable with establishing a contalist account and then having confidential data go there. Sendboard doesn't include attachments automatically, they told me (even though their video seems to say it does, so I'm still figuring that out). Hipporello has a lot of potential but I don't have time for the learning curve right now, when the need I have is very simple.

But I am keeping these in mind for the future. They all look cool. Just not the right fit for what I'm trying to do at the moment.

If you have other ideas, or comments on what I've said above, I'd love to hear them. Really appreciate the help! Thanks again.

[milynnus]

@R M 

Disclaimer : as a Trello consultant I have worked with all 3 software to help my clients address specific business requirements. 
Contalist and Hipporello allows you to use your email as an smtp relay which means that your users will get an email from your email. Will the power up still keep a copy of the email? You will have to ask the respective companies. I am in direct contact with all 3. 

The alternative is to use a smtp relay. I have one that I used for sending notifications for custom automation which I have just turn it to an app on Deta Space (alpha). The benefit here is that all app data lives inside your personal, private cloud. 

In all practical reality, other than using you email with attachments, all intermediary software will have to handle the unknown - the file size of your attachments. Perhaps that is why Trello does not support actual attachments natively

[R M]

@milynnus Thank you for this information.

The objection to Contalist was not the email content itself. It was that all recipients need to be Contalist contacts. At least, that's what Contalist told me in the setup phase, which is why I went no further. If SMTP relay means I can send to non-Contalist contacts, that might work.

I might be able to assemble a Hipporello app that does what I want. Will continue to explore that option.

Sendboard would be the most straightforward choice. As long as it behaves with attachments as it does in the video. Continuing to look into that in the background as well.

Thanks again.