Turn your emails into tasksCombining emails and to-dos may not be a feasible idea; however, segregating the two can be a tough row to hoe. So, let’s settle for a comfortable medium.

How about getting rid of these emails and transforming them into tasks? This can be easily achieved since the current lot of task management apps come with an in-built system that help you change your emails into to-dos without having to abandon your inbox.

Take a look at this article to find out how this works in some of the widely used task management apps.


asana-logo_600w1. Asana

When you use Asana to email tasks to a given email with the name of the task in the subject line, the app directs it to the section titled “My Tasks” present in the default Workspace or Organization. To do this, go to “My Profile Settings” and click on “From Email” as shown below.

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Your email content is converted into task notes while all attachments in the email are turned into task attachments. In order to add your team members as followers of the task, just CC them.

It’s also possible to send an email to Asana and convert it into a task under a particular tag or project. The only thing you need to do is add the unique ID of the project in this way:

a+ID of the project@mail.asana.com

To know the ID of the project, open the project and look at the address bar or URL. You’ll find a series of numbers, which is the project ID. For instance, if the URL of the project is https://app.asana.com/1/2345678/list, the ID would be 2345678.

logo-trello2. Trello

With Trello, if you want to send an email in the form of a task to a board, you’ll have to first find the unique email address of that particular board. To do this, open the board and click on the tab titled “Show Menu” present on the rightmost portion of the screen. On doing so, an obscured Menu sidebar shows up. Next, click on “More” and then on “Email-to-board Settings”. This displays the email address associated with the board in question.

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Save the email id in your address book. This allows you to send an email to that address whenever you want. Consequently, the email is transformed into a task by Trello.

The subject of the email becomes the name of the task on the new card, with the content of the body being the description. Any attachment in the email gets adhered to the card.

When you add @mentions in the subject line, body of the email, or To or CC fields, the card can be assigned to your team members.

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It is also possible to use hashtags to include labels depending on their name, number, or color. The screenshot above will make this clear.

Do you want to change the location of the cards created through email? In that case, go to “Email-to-board Settings” and define a default card location along with a default list.

Similar to a board, each card also has an associated email address, which can be found in the “Share and more” tab once the card is opened. If you send an email to this address, it shows up as a comment on the card.

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wunderlist-logo3. Wunderlist

The first step to turn email into tasks in Wunderlist is to create an account with Wunderlust. The next step is to check the box titled “Enable Mail to Wunderlist for your account.” The illustration below will make this clear.

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Once you do this, it’s possible to send or forward any emails that are task-based to me@wunderlist.com. On doing so, the task appears in your inbox of Wunderlist. To ensure that this works, you’ll have to send the email from the address linked to your Wunderlist account.

In this case, the subject of your email becomes the name of the task while the email body gets fastened as a note. Since HTML is not supported by Wunderlust, you have to use plaintext in the email body.

todoist logo4. Todoist

The email tasks feature in Todoist is meant only for premium members. If you happen to be one, right click on the name of the project appearing in the sidebar and select “Email tasks to this project” which can be seen in the dropdown menu.

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On selecting the option, you’ll see the unique email address of that project. The other options which you can see in the popup are as follows:

  • The syntax for adding properties related to the task like reminders and labels
  • The choice to add email addresses from where you want to assign tasks

When you send an email to the email address linked to the project, it gets converted into a task. The subject of the email becomes the name of the task while the contents of the email become a note.

Todoist has plugins to associate messages to tasks with the help of some widely used browsers and email clients. This can help you get rid of inbox overload.

Toodledo logo5. Toodledo

If you want to email tasks to your account on Toodledo, you have to set up your email address.  In order to accomplish this, click on your profile picture. On doing so, a dropdown menu appears. Click on “More” and you’ll see the “Tools” section. You’ll be directed to the “Tools and Services” tab, where you need to click on another section called “Configure”.

A new screen appears and under “Email Service” section, check the box adjacent to the “Enable e-mail importing”. Following this, click on the button titled “Save Changes”. This will reveal your email address as shown below:

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If you send any email to this address, it gets converted into a Tooodledo task. As usual, the subject line becomes the task name while the content of the body becomes a note.

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