Rebuild from mailbox

Rebuild from mailbox

Rebuild orders from mailbox re-reads a connected inbox over a period you choose and rebuilds the orders it produced, using Shippified's current parsers and your current templates. It's how you bring in order history from before you connected, and how you pick up mail that an earlier version of a parser missed.

This guide explains what a rebuild replaces, what it keeps, how it runs, and how it differs from Re-run parsing on the Templates page.

When to use it

• You just connected an inbox and want your past orders, not only the most recent messages.

• A retailer's emails weren't recognised before and support has since been added, either by a Shippified update or by a custom template you built.

• Some orders look incomplete or wrong and you want them rebuilt from the original emails.

• Emails were skipped because your plan's monthly order limit had been reached.

Where to find it

On Links → Email, each Google, Microsoft and IMAP source card has a clock icon labelled Rebuild orders from mailbox, next to the edit and delete icons.

Forwarding sources don't have one. Shippified has no mailbox to read for them, only the individual messages you forwarded.

Running a rebuild

1. Check that the source card shows connected. If you're not sure the details still work, select Sync now first.

2. Select the Rebuild orders from mailbox icon on the card.

3. Read the summary: Re-read this mailbox with the current parser and replace the orders it produced in that window. Orders you edited, and orders also seen from a Discord bot, are kept.

4. Choose how far back to go under Look back: 7 days, 30 days (the default), 90 days or 1 year.

5. Select Rebuild.

The card shows Rebuilding from the mailbox… orders will appear as messages are re-read. while it works, and updates itself every few seconds. You can leave the page. The rebuild continues on Shippified's side.

When it's done, the card shows a summary line:

Last rebuild date and time: N order messages read, M non-order emails skipped.

If something went wrong, the error appears in that line instead.

What a rebuild replaces

A rebuild runs in three stages.

Stage 1: check the mailbox. Before touching any orders, Shippified signs in to the mailbox and makes sure it can read it. If it can't (a changed password, revoked access, a wrong IMAP host), the rebuild stops there and the summary line says Couldn't read the mailbox, so nothing was changed: followed by the reason. Your orders are left exactly as they were. Fix the connection (see Connect an email inbox) and start the rebuild again.

Stage 2: clear out. Shippified removes orders that meet all of these conditions:

• They came from this email source.

• They're dated within the look-back window. (An order is dated by its email, not by when Shippified imported it.)

• Email is the only way Shippified ever saw them. There's no Discord post and no manual entry for the same order.

• You've never edited them, and they have no sale price.

Stage 3: re-read. Shippified reads every message in the mailbox received since the start of the window. If there are more than 5,000, it reads the most recent 5,000, so a very busy mailbox with a long look-back loses its oldest mail rather than its newest. Each message goes through the same pipeline as new mail, including the source's Allowed senders and template list. Order emails become orders again, status updates merge into their orders, and everything else is skipped.

For Google sources the re-read covers messages across the whole mailbox. For Microsoft and IMAP it covers the Inbox folder only.

What a rebuild keeps

Emails that belong to an order that was kept are recognised as already imported, and aren't added a second time. Every email is tracked by its unique Message-ID, so a rebuild can never create duplicates.

Note: Replaced orders are new records. If you or a developer integration kept a link to one of them (a share snapshot, or an order ID saved through the API), that link points to an order that no longer exists.

It runs in the background, and quietly

• In the background: the rebuild starts immediately and you get your screen back. Only one rebuild can run on a source at a time. Starting another shows A rebuild is already running for this source.

• Normal checking pauses: Shippified doesn't check that source for new mail during a rebuild. Checking resumes when the rebuild finishes, and nothing is lost, because new mail is picked up on the next check.

• Silently: a rebuild is a history import, so it sends no notifications. You won't get push notifications for old orders, and your outbound webhooks and integrations aren't triggered for them. The emails it turns into orders are still listed on the Inbox page.

Important: The mailbox check protects you from a source that can't sign in, but not from missing mail. The clear-out happens before the re-read, so if the mailbox no longer contains some of those emails (you deleted them, or for IMAP and Microsoft moved them out of the Inbox), those orders can't be rebuilt and won't come back. Pick the shortest look-back that covers what you need.

Note: New orders created by a rebuild count toward your plan's monthly order limit, if your plan has one, in the same way as newly arriving mail.

Re-run parsing: the other repair tool

The Templates page has a Re-run parsing button. It sounds similar, but it works differently.

Shippified keeps a copy of every message that became an order, whether it came from email or a Discord bot. Re-run parsing takes those saved copies and parses them again with your current templates. It never contacts your mailbox.

When you select it, Shippified goes through all of your orders, on every source:

• Orders with saved messages are rebuilt from those messages. Your own values are carried over: sale price, any field you edited, and carrier tracking data such as delivery dates and addresses. A carrier-confirmed delivery stays delivered.

• Orders that now share an order number are merged into one.

• Orders whose messages are no longer recognised as order mail are removed, unless you've edited them or added a sale price.

• Orders with no saved messages (orders you added by hand, and orders imported before Shippified began keeping copies) are left alone.

It runs while you wait. The button shows Re-parsing…, and then a summary such as Re-parsed 120 orders: 14 updated, 3 merged., including how many were removed as non-order mail if any were.

Which one should I use?

In short:

• You changed or added a template and want existing orders to reflect it: use Re-run parsing. It's fast, covers Discord orders too, and keeps your edits.

• Emails are missing entirely (never imported, from before you connected, or skipped earlier): use Rebuild orders from mailbox.

Tip: After building a template for a retailer Shippified didn't recognise, those emails were ignored when they first arrived, so Re-run parsing can't see them. Rebuild the mailbox to bring them in.

Related guides

• Connect an email inbox: connection methods, polling, and what counts as order mail.

• Orders and their lifecycle: how messages merge into orders and how statuses move.