diff --git a/app/models/mail_handler.rb b/app/models/mail_handler.rb
index be4b363b1..23879c153 100755
--- a/app/models/mail_handler.rb
+++ b/app/models/mail_handler.rb
@@ -447,16 +447,25 @@ class MailHandler < ActionMailer::Base
     end
   end
 
-  # Returns the text/plain part of the email
-  # If not found (eg. HTML-only email), returns the body with tags removed
+  # Returns the text/plain or text/html(the body with tags removed) part of the email
+  # The preferred of parse depends on Setting.mail_handler_preferred_body_part
+  # * 'html'           - first text/html, then text/plain
+  # * 'plain'(Default) - first text/plain, then text/html
   def plain_text_body
     return @plain_text_body unless @plain_text_body.nil?
 
-    # check if we have any plain-text parts with content
-    @plain_text_body = email_parts_to_text(email.all_parts.select {|p| p.mime_type == 'text/plain'}).presence
-
-    # if not, we try to parse the body from the HTML-parts
-    @plain_text_body ||= email_parts_to_text(email.all_parts.select {|p| p.mime_type == 'text/html'}).presence
+    multipart_parse_order =
+      if Setting.mail_handler_preferred_body_part == 'html'
+        # HTML parts, plain-text parts
+        ['text/html', 'text/plain']
+      else
+        # (Default) plain-text parts, HTML parts
+        ['text/plain', 'text/html']
+      end
+    multipart_parse_order.each do |mime_type|
+      @plain_text_body ||= email_parts_to_text(email.all_parts.select {|p| p.mime_type == mime_type}).presence
+      return @plain_text_body unless @plain_text_body.nil?
+    end
 
     # If there is still no body found, and there are no mime-parts defined,
     # we use the whole raw mail body
diff --git a/app/views/settings/_mail_handler.html.erb b/app/views/settings/_mail_handler.html.erb
index 36fa864bb..d14593da1 100644
--- a/app/views/settings/_mail_handler.html.erb
+++ b/app/views/settings/_mail_handler.html.erb
@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@
     <em class="info"><%= l(:text_comma_separated) %>
     <%= l(:label_example) %>: smime.p7s, *.vcf</em>
   </p>
+  <p><%= setting_select :mail_handler_preferred_body_part, [['Text', 'plain'], ['HTML', 'html']] %></p>
 </div>
 
 <div class="box tabular settings">
diff --git a/config/locales/en.yml b/config/locales/en.yml
index 74e03d34e..357696327 100644
--- a/config/locales/en.yml
+++ b/config/locales/en.yml
@@ -422,6 +422,7 @@ en:
   setting_mail_handler_enable_regex: "Enable regular expressions"
   setting_mail_handler_api_enabled: Enable WS for incoming emails
   setting_mail_handler_api_key: Incoming email WS API key
+  setting_mail_handler_preferred_body_part: Preferred part of multipart (HTML) emails
   setting_sys_api_key: Repository management WS API key
   setting_sequential_project_identifiers: Generate sequential project identifiers
   setting_gravatar_enabled: Use Gravatar user icons
diff --git a/config/settings.yml b/config/settings.yml
index b6c026104..0dc948286 100644
--- a/config/settings.yml
+++ b/config/settings.yml
@@ -195,6 +195,8 @@ mail_handler_api_enabled:
 mail_handler_api_key:
   default:
   security_notifications: 1
+mail_handler_preferred_body_part:
+  default: plain
 issue_list_default_columns:
   serialized: true
   default:
diff --git a/test/fixtures/mail_handler/text_and_html_part.eml b/test/fixtures/mail_handler/text_and_html_part.eml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..022bbd63f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/fixtures/mail_handler/text_and_html_part.eml
@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+From JSmith@somenet.foo  Fri Mar 22 08:30:28 2013
+From: John Smith <JSmith@somenet.foo>
+Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="Apple-Mail=_33C8180A-B097-4B87-A925-441300BDB9C9"
+Message-Id: <BB533668-3CC8-41CA-A951-0A5D8EA37FB0@somenet.foo>
+Mime-Version: 1.0 (Mac OS X Mail 6.3 \(1503\))
+Subject: Test with an empty text part
+Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2013 17:30:20 +0200
+To: redmine@somenet.foo
+X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1503)
+
+
+
+--Apple-Mail=_33C8180A-B097-4B87-A925-441300BDB9C9
+Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
+Content-Type: text/plain;
+	charset=us-ascii
+
+The text part.
+
+
+--Apple-Mail=_33C8180A-B097-4B87-A925-441300BDB9C9
+Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
+Content-Type: text/html;
+	charset=us-ascii
+
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://ww=
+w.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
+<html xmlns=3D"http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv=3D"Content-Type" content=3D"text/html; charset=3Dutf-8" />
+</head>
+<body>
+<p>The html part.</p>
+</body>
+</html>
+
+
+--Apple-Mail=_33C8180A-B097-4B87-A925-441300BDB9C9--
diff --git a/test/unit/mail_handler_test.rb b/test/unit/mail_handler_test.rb
index 9d7fd6d12..916c43c2b 100644
--- a/test/unit/mail_handler_test.rb
+++ b/test/unit/mail_handler_test.rb
@@ -662,6 +662,17 @@ class MailHandlerTest < ActiveSupport::TestCase
     assert_equal '', issue.description
   end
 
+  def test_preferred_body_part_setting
+    with_settings :mail_handler_preferred_body_part => 'plain' do
+      issue = submit_email('text_and_html_part.eml', :issue => {:project => 'ecookbook'})
+      assert_equal 'The text part.', issue.description
+    end
+    with_settings :mail_handler_preferred_body_part => 'html' do
+      issue = submit_email('text_and_html_part.eml', :issue => {:project => 'ecookbook'})
+      assert_equal 'The html part.', issue.description
+    end
+  end
+
   def test_attachment_text_part_should_be_added_as_issue_attachment
     issue = submit_email('multiple_text_parts.eml', :issue => {:project => 'ecookbook'})
     assert_not_include 'Plain text attachment', issue.description