I am able to poll the set address and create group messages but removing that email from the group and attaching to a category I consistently get the email_reject_bad_destination_address error message. We’re sorry, but your email message to [“team@MMMMMM.org”] (titled testing email to category) didn’t work. Here are some things to check: Do you use more than one email address? Did you reply from a different email address than the one you originally used? Email replies require that you use the same email address when replying. Did your email software properly use the Reply-To: email address when replying? Unfortunately, some email software incorrectly sends replies to the From: address, which won’t work. Was the Message-ID header in the email modified? The Message-ID must be consistent and unchanged. Need more help? Reach out to us via the Contact Us details at https://MMMMMM.org/about Suggestions anyone? Following as best I can Configuring incoming email to create new topics or group messages and Set up reply by email with POP3 polling (not using Gmail) and Troubleshoot reply by email

Yes, PITA :100: agree The docs are appreciated but some updating would be helpful for the next folks to come along. For example I did not realize the Forwarded emails behavior setting was required and critical. Once I realized this was the only thing that I had not tried some quick trial and error got things working. Setting to “quote” did the trick. [image] Configuring incoming email to create new topics or group messages Site Management bookmark This guide explains how to configure Discourse to create new topics or group messages from incoming emails. It covers site settings, group configuration, and category settings. person_raising_hand Required user level: Administrator Configure incoming email to create new topics or group messages Discourse allows you to send emails to a special address to automatically create new topics in a category or new group messages. This feature is useful for integrating Discourse with ext… [image]Configuring incoming email to create new topics or group messages Forwarded emails behavior You can decide how forwarded emails appear in Discourse using the forwarded emails behaviour site setting, which has the following options: hide - a new new topic or PM will be created with the forwarded text included as hidden text that can be expanded to view quote - a new topic or PM will be created with the forwarded text included as quoted text. create replies - a new topic or PM will be created authored by the original sender. Replies will be created authored by participants in the email. If the user accounts do not already exist matching the sender email addresses, they will be created as staged user accounts. Things started working in categories as well. [image] Configuring Incoming Email to Create Category Topics or Group Messages Support I am able to poll the set address and create group messages but removing that email from the group and attaching to a category I consistently get the email_reject_bad_destination_address error message. We’re sorry, but your email message to [“team@MMMMMM.org”] (titled testing email to category) didn’t work. Here are some things to check: Do you use more than one email address? Did you reply from a different email address than the one you originally used? Email replies require that you u…

[image]Reply by email address broken This works as expected and the email now comes from community.forum+@domain.com with the reply-to header also set correclty. How did you set up polling for community.forum@domain.com ??

[image]Reply by email address broken Discourse ignores the Reply by email address if the email address does not contain %{reply_key} That’s expected. The reply_key is what connects the reply with the thing that you’re replying to. If there’s a bug, it’s that it allows you to enter anything without %{reply-key}.

Either you have your own SMTP / POP server or you can forward the emails from domain.com to gmail and have discourse poll gmail.

Thanks for the reply… I referred to that address as your example of what was working. I don’t use gmail or domain.com Yes, I have my own mail server with 4 related addresses 3 of which are forwarded to the 4th. The 4th is polled by discourse. Two of forwarded emails are used on Group A and the 3rd is used on another Group B. This works without issue except replying my email to the specific message is not yet setup hence my question. So in my case: The polled domain is meta@mydomain.com Reply by email address is replies+%{reply_key}@mydomain.com replies@mydomain.com is forwarded to meta@mydomain.com An example “Reply to” in a resulting group message email is: replies+f33496547209ecb9f2006a4172d5840c@mydomain.com Replying yields the [] Email issue – Unknown To: Address message Been scratching my head for numerous hours sorting this out. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Note: I am guessing I should have posted elsewhere, not in an old Bug thread.

Yeah it’s a PITA but this is how I got it to work, don’t use a reply key and forward replies from reply@domain.com to something@gmail.com and have discourse poll gmail.com [image]

Hi @Lilly thanks for moving some posts around however you marked my issue solved incorrectly. Please remove or change the :white_check_mark: [image] philh: Once I realized this was the only thing that I had not tried some quick trial and error got things working. Setting to “quote” did the trick.

@Lilly closed the PM on this without waiting for a response. hmmm If I offended by sending PM I apologize. My PM response: Thanks Lilly. not about stats. It is about not misleading other users trying to sort incoming mail. Using gmail is a work around method when the SMTP server has issues with appending keys. The larger problem is the state of docs around incoming mail. Glad to pitch in where I can @tobiaseigen

Configuring Incoming Email to Create Category Topics or Group Messages

Product Support

philh August 31, 2025, 4:07pm 9

Hi @Lilly thanks for moving some posts around however you marked my issue solved incorrectly. Please remove or change the

Topic		Replies	Views
Discourse Reply via Email NEVER works Product Support	5	1584	January 7, 2016
Incoming email replies do not share the same topic Product Support email-in	6	412	December 9, 2025
Issue when allowing reply-to posts and email to create topics General	0	663	March 15, 2021
Reply-via-email to another address Product Support	8	1438	January 16, 2019
Reply by email Issues Product Support	5	1093	July 20, 2026

Configuring Incoming Email to Create Category Topics or Group Messages

Related topics