# E-mail to a board

> How e-mail to a board works – a board's own secret address turns a member's mail into a card, the subject its title, the text its description – who may send, the limits, and whether it is available yet.

Source: https://contals.com/docs/en/boards/email-to-board/  
Last updated: 2026-10-19

Every board can have its own e-mail address. Forward a request, a note to yourself or a message from a phone – it becomes a card: the **subject** is its title, the **text** its description.

## Turn it on

1. Board header → **Settings** → **E-mail to this board**.
2. Switch on **Turn on the board’s e-mail address**. **The board’s address** appears – **Copy** it or save it in your contacts.
3. Choose where **New cards go to**: a list, or **The first list**.

Only the board's admins can turn it on or off. Members who may create cards see the address in the same place.

## Who may send

- Members of the board who may create cards (contributors, editors, admins), **from the address they sign in to Contals with**. The card is created in their name.
- The sender must be verifiable: the receiving mail server checks the domain of the sender (DMARC, DKIM or SPF). A forged sender is refused.
- Mail from other addresses, auto-replies, bounce messages and mailing lists is refused. Nothing is ever sent back.
- Confidential boards have no e-mail address.

## What a card takes from a mail

- The subject (or, without one, the first line) becomes the title – up to 200 characters.
- The text becomes the description – up to 10,000 characters; a mail in HTML is converted to plain text, links keep their address, the signature after `-- ` is left out.
- Attachments are not added to the card yet; the description names them.
- Mails larger than 5 MB are refused.

## A new address, the log

- **New address** replaces the address; the old one stops working at once. Useful when it reached the wrong people.
- **Recent mails** shows the last ten mails with what became of them – a card, or why it was refused. Contals keeps this log for 30 days with IDs and a fingerprint of the sender, never the address, the subject or the text.

## Limits

| | Free | Team | Business |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mails to board addresses per organization and day | 25 | 500 | 2,000 |

Turning the address on or off and a new address are recorded in the [audit log](/docs/en/settings/audit-log/).

## See also

- [Board settings](/docs/en/settings/board/)
- [Webhooks, Zapier and Make](/docs/en/integrations/webhooks/) – the other direction: board events to other services