How to Forward Emails to Linear Automatically

Manually creating Linear issues from emails is slow and easy to skip under pressure. With auto-forwarding, matching emails become Linear issues automatically — no clicking, no copy-pasting, no context switching. Here's how to set it up.

What Is Email-to-Linear Forwarding?

Email forwarding to Linear works by giving you a unique email address tied to a Linear team. Any email sent to that address gets parsed and saved as a new issue in your team.

Quicktion provides this out of the box. When you create a destination, you get an address like abc123@in.quicktion.io. Forward an email there, and it appears as a Linear issue within seconds.

The system extracts the subject, sender, date, body, and attachments from the forwarded email. The subject becomes the issue title. The body is converted to markdown and saved as the description. Attachments are uploaded and linked. Default fields you configure — project, status, priority, assignee, and labels — are applied automatically.

For a broader overview of what's possible, see our complete guide to saving emails to Linear.

Setting Up Auto-Forwarding in Gmail

Gmail lets you create filters that automatically forward matching emails. This is the most powerful approach because the rules run server-side — no browser or device needs to be open for them to work.

1. Open Gmail Settings and go to Filters and Blocked Addresses
2. Click Create a new filter
3. Set your criteria (e.g., from a specific sender, with a specific subject, or containing certain keywords)
4. Click Create filter and check Forward it to
5. Enter your Quicktion forwarding address

From now on, any email matching your filter will be forwarded to Linear automatically.

Examples of Useful Gmail Filters for Linear

Forward all support emails:

• Filter: To contains support@yourapp.com
• Action: Forward to your Quicktion address (destination: Bug Reports team, priority: Medium, status: Triage)

Forward error monitoring alerts:

• Filter: From contains alerts@sentry.io OR from contains noreply@bugsnag.com
• Action: Forward to your Quicktion address (destination: Engineering team, priority: High, label: automated)

Forward client feedback from a specific domain:

• Filter: From contains @clientcompany.com
• Action: Forward to your Quicktion address (destination: Product team, label: client-feedback)

Forward all emails with "feature request" in the subject:

• Filter: Subject contains feature request
• Action: Forward to your Quicktion address (destination: Product Backlog, status: Backlog)

You can create as many filters as you need, each forwarding to a different Quicktion destination and therefore a different Linear team or project. Route bug reports to your engineering team, feature requests to your product backlog, and client escalations to your customer success board.

Setting Up Auto-Forwarding in Outlook

Outlook supports rules-based forwarding too. The interface is slightly different from Gmail, but the concept is the same.

Outlook Web (outlook.com or Microsoft 365)

1. Go to Settings > Mail > Rules
2. Click Add new rule
3. Name your rule (e.g., "Forward support emails to Linear")
4. Set your conditions (e.g., from a specific address, subject contains certain words)
5. Choose Forward to as the action
6. Enter your Quicktion forwarding address
7. Click Save

Outlook Desktop (Windows/Mac)

1. Go to File > Manage Rules & Alerts
2. Click New Rule
3. Select Apply rule on messages I receive and click Next
4. Choose your conditions (sender, subject, keywords, etc.)
5. Click Next and select forward it to people or public group
6. Click the underlined link to enter your Quicktion address
7. Complete the wizard and save the rule

Outlook rules also run server-side, so they work even when Outlook is closed. Every matching email is forwarded and saved to your Linear team automatically.

Setting Up Forwarding in Apple Mail

Apple Mail on macOS supports rules that can automatically forward emails to any address, including your Quicktion destination.

1. Open Mail and go to Settings
2. Click the Rules tab
3. Click Add Rule
4. Give your rule a name (e.g., "Forward support emails to Linear")
5. Set your conditions — for example, set "From" contains "support" to catch support-related emails
6. Under "Perform the following actions," select Forward Message and enter your Quicktion forwarding address
7. Click OK to save the rule

Important limitation: Apple Mail rules run on your Mac, so your computer needs to be on and Mail needs to be open for the rules to trigger. If you need forwarding to work 24/7 without keeping your Mac running, set up rules in Gmail or Outlook's web interface instead — those run server-side.

What Gets Saved to Linear

When an email is forwarded to Quicktion, it extracts and maps the following to a Linear issue:

• Subject — becomes the issue title
• Body — converted from HTML to markdown and saved as the issue description, with links, headings, bold text, and lists preserved
• Sender name and email — included at the top of the description for context
• Date — recorded as part of the issue metadata
• Attachments — uploaded and linked directly in the issue description

Beyond the email content itself, the destination configuration applies default Linear-specific fields to every incoming issue:

• Team — which Linear team the issue belongs to
• Project — which project within the team
• Status — starting status, e.g., "Triage" or "Backlog"
• Priority — urgency level, e.g., "Medium" or "High"
• Assignee — the team member responsible by default
• Labels — tags to categorize incoming issues, e.g., "email-in", "support", "client-feedback"

Configure these once per destination and every forwarded email arrives already categorized, prioritized, and assigned — ready for your team to act on.

Use Cases for Forwarding Emails to Linear

Support Emails as Bug Reports

Most dev teams handle some level of support themselves, especially early on. When users email to report a bug or unexpected behavior, that email needs to become an engineering issue. Auto-forward your support inbox to a Quicktion destination configured for your engineering team. Set status to "Triage" and priority to "Medium" by default.

Every support email becomes a properly formatted Linear issue with the user's full description as the body. Your team triages from Linear without digging through email threads.

Client Emails as Feature Requests

Agencies and dev shops collect feature requests from clients primarily over email. Set up a Gmail filter for each client's email domain and auto-forward to a destination linked to their project in Linear. The feature request lands as an issue with the client's exact words preserved as markdown in the description.

You can segment by client by creating one destination per client, each with a different project or label. No emails get lost, and every request has a Linear issue trail.

Error Monitoring Alerts as Engineering Issues

Services like Sentry, Bugsnag, Datadog, and PagerDuty send email notifications when errors occur. Instead of those notifications getting buried in a shared inbox, auto-forward them to a Linear destination configured for your engineering team. Set priority to "Urgent" and label to "automated-alert."

Your team sees the error in Linear with full context from the email body — including stack traces, frequency counts, and any additional diagnostics the monitoring service included.

Internal Escalations as Tasks

Sales, marketing, and ops teams frequently email engineering with requests or escalations. These messages often get lost in a busy inbox. Use a Gmail filter to forward emails with keywords like "urgent," "blocker," or "deadline" — or from specific internal senders — to a Quicktion destination. Every escalation becomes a visible Linear issue rather than a buried email thread.

Tips for Power Users

Use Multiple Destinations for Different Issue Types

Each Quicktion destination has its own forwarding address and maps to a specific Linear team and project. Create one destination for bug reports linked to your engineering team, another for feature requests linked to your product backlog, and a third for client escalations linked to a customer success project. Set up one forwarding rule per destination and the routing happens automatically.

Set Default Labels to Track Email Origin

Quicktion lets you set default labels on each destination. Add a label like email-in or from-email to every issue created through forwarding. This makes it easy to filter issues by origin in Linear — useful for understanding how much of your team's work comes in via email.

Combine Forwarding with the Gmail Add-on

Auto-forwarding handles emails that match a rule you've already set up. But sometimes you receive an email you want to save that doesn't match any filter.

The Quicktion Gmail add-on gives you a "Save to Linear" button directly inside Gmail. Click it, choose a destination, and the email becomes a Linear issue without leaving your inbox. The add-on and forwarding use the same destinations, so everything lands in the same Linear teams.

Using both together means you never miss an email-worthy issue regardless of whether you had a forwarding rule set up for it.

Test Before Going Live

Before setting up auto-forwarding rules, forward a few test emails manually to your Quicktion address. Verify the issue title looks right, the description renders correctly in Linear's markdown editor, and attachments appear linked in the description. A few minutes of testing saves you from discovering a misconfigured destination after dozens of issues have already been created.

Use Linear's Triage View

Set all forwarded emails to arrive with status "Triage" and add them to a team where triage is enabled. Linear's triage view surfaces new issues requiring team attention without them cluttering the active backlog. Your team reviews triage daily, moves relevant issues to the backlog with appropriate priority, and closes irrelevant ones — all without touching the email inbox.

Get Started

Sign up for Quicktion and create your first forwarding destination linked to a Linear team. It takes less than two minutes.

For more on saving emails directly from Gmail without forwarding, see our Gmail to Linear integration guide.

For an overview of all methods including the Gmail add-on and a comparison with manual workflows, see our complete guide to saving emails to Linear.