Connect an email inbox

Connect an email inbox

Retailers email you when you place an order, when it ships, and when it's delivered. Connect the inbox that receives those emails and Shippified turns them into orders, then keeps those orders up to date as later emails arrive.

This guide covers every connection method, how Shippified reads your mail, what it deliberately ignores, and how to fix the common problems.

Choosing a connection method

Go to Links → Email and select Add inbox. The Provider menu has four options:

Every source also has a Label (a name for you) and an Address (the inbox's email address, used for display). For Google and Microsoft, the address is filled in from the account you connect.

Tip: If you have Gmail, use Google (OAuth). It needs no password or app password, and you can revoke it from your Google account at any time.

Google (OAuth)

Shippified asks Google for read-only Gmail access. It can read messages. It can't send, delete or change anything.

1. In Links → Email, select Add inbox.

2. Enter a Label, set Provider to Google (OAuth), and select Connect inbox.

3. The new card shows the status needs auth. Select the pencil icon (Edit source) on the card.

4. Select Connect Google account. Google's consent screen opens in a new tab.

5. Choose the account and approve access. The tab confirms Connected with the address. Close it.

6. Back in Shippified, the card shows connected, with the Gmail address you connected. Reload if it hasn't updated.

Your refresh token (the long-lived permission Google issues) is stored encrypted. Shippified never sees your Google password.

Note: Google OAuth can only be started from a saved source. If you select Connect Google account before saving, Shippified asks you to save first.

Microsoft (OAuth)

This works for personal Microsoft accounts (Outlook.com, Hotmail, Live) and for Office 365 work accounts.

1. In Links → Email, select Add inbox.

2. Enter a Label, set Provider to Microsoft (OAuth), and select Connect inbox.

3. On the saved card, select Edit source, then Connect Microsoft account.

4. Sign in and approve the permissions Shippified asks for: read your mail, read your basic profile, and stay connected (offline access).

5. The tab confirms Connected. Close it and go back to Shippified.

Shippified reads the Inbox folder of the connected account.

IMAP (any provider)

IMAP is the standard way for mail apps to read a mailbox, and almost every email provider supports it.

1. In Links → Email, select Add inbox and set Provider to IMAP (any provider).

2. Fill in the connection details:

1. Select Connect inbox. IMAP sources are ready straight away and show connected. To check the details right away, select Sync now on the card instead of waiting for the next automatic check. If the server rejects the username or password, the card changes to auth failed.

Your password is encrypted before it's stored and is never shown again. When you edit the source later, leave the password field blank to keep the saved one.

Shippified reads only the INBOX folder over IMAP. If a mail rule moves retailer emails into another folder or label before Shippified sees them, they won't be picked up.

About app passwords

Some providers, including Gmail and Google Workspace, don't let mail apps sign in with your normal password. Instead you create an app password: a separate password for one app that you can revoke without changing your main password.

For Gmail, the general process is:

1. Turn on 2-Step Verification for your Google account (app passwords are only available once it's on).

2. Open the App passwords page in your Google account security settings.

3. Create a new app password and copy it.

4. Paste it into Password / app password in Shippified.

Other providers (for example Yahoo, iCloud and some business hosts) have their own versions of this. Look for "app password" or "app-specific password" in your provider's help. Many other providers accept your normal password over a TLS connection.

Tip: Gmail users can skip app passwords entirely by using Google (OAuth).

Forwarding address

With a forwarding source, Shippified never signs in to your mailbox. You forward the retailer emails you want tracked to a unique address, and Shippified reads them as they arrive.

1. In Links → Email, select Add inbox, set Provider to Forwarding address, and select Connect inbox.

2. Shippified creates a unique inbound address for this source, in the form <slug>@shippified.net, and shows it on the source card. To copy it, open Edit source, find Your inbound address, and select Copy.

3. In your email account, forward retailer order mail to that address.

The slug part of the address is random and unguessable, and the address belongs to this one source. Forwarding sources are connected as soon as they're created.

Setting up forwarding

The How do I set up forwarding? panel on the source has quick instructions for common providers:

• Gmail: in Settings, open Forwarding and POP/IMAP, choose Add a forwarding address and paste your inbound address. Gmail then asks you to confirm it (see below). Once it's confirmed, create a filter that forwards retailer order mail, for example by the retailer's sender address.

• Outlook / Office 365: turn on forwarding in your mail settings, or create a rule that forwards messages from specific senders.

• Apple Mail / iCloud: on iCloud.com, open Mail settings and add a rule that forwards by sender.

• Custom domain (for example Cloudflare or ImprovMX email routing): add a forwarding entry that sends an address such as [email protected] to your inbound address.

Confirming a Gmail forwarding address

Gmail won't forward to a new address until you confirm it. It does that by sending a confirmation email, with a code and a link, to the address you added. Because that address is your Shippified inbound address, Shippified catches the confirmation for you:

1. After you add the forwarding address in Gmail, go back to Links → Email. Reload if the card hasn't updated.

2. The forwarding source shows Gmail is asking to confirm forwarding, with the Gmail account that asked for it.

3. Either select the code to copy it and enter it in Gmail under Settings → Forwarding and POP/IMAP, or select Open confirmation link.

The confirmation email itself is never turned into an order.

Tip: Gmail forwarding works, but Google (OAuth) is still the simpler choice for Gmail: no filter to maintain, and past mail can be brought in with a rebuild.

How forwarded mail reaches Shippified

Mail sent to your inbound address goes through an email-routing service that hands each message to Shippified. Shippified then finds the source from the address and processes the message like any other email. There's nothing to poll, so forwarded mail is usually processed within seconds.

Some cases are refused, and the email is bounced back to the mailbox that forwarded it with a reason starting Shippified::

• The inbound address doesn't match any source (for example, you deleted the source).

• Your plan's monthly order limit has been reached.

• The message is too large. Shippified accepts forwarded messages up to roughly 2 MB. Real order emails are far smaller.

Emails that aren't order mail are accepted quietly and not bounced. Emails from a sender that isn't on the source's Allowed senders list (see below) aren't bounced either: they're dropped, and listed in the Inbox as refused so you can see what happened.

Forwarding and manual forwards

Shippified understands both automatic forwarding and emails you forward by hand. Automatic forwarding keeps the retailer as the sender. When you forward a message manually from Gmail, Apple Mail or Outlook, the original sender and subject are quoted in the body. Shippified reads those and treats the message as coming from the retailer, not from you. A manually forwarded Target delivery email is recognised exactly like the original, and it's checked against Allowed senders as the retailer's email.

Narrowing what a source reads

Two optional settings on every source control what it accepts. Both are on the add and edit form.

Templates this source parses against

This is the source's template allow-list. Each chip is one template, either a built-in one (for example "Target Order Shipped") or one of your own custom email templates.

• None selected: every template is tried. This is the right choice for most people.

• One or more selected: only those templates are tried, in the order you selected them. The number on each chip is its priority. Templates are tried from top to bottom, and the first match wins.

A custom template is only tried on email if it has at least one match rule. A template with no rules never matches on its own, so selecting it here has no effect until you give it a rule.

When no selected template matches an email, Shippified still applies its general rules for order mail (see "What gets ignored" below). Selecting templates tells Shippified which parser to prefer. It doesn't block every other email.

Allowed senders

A list of sender addresses, one per line. Each line can be:

Matching ignores upper and lower case. An empty list accepts any sender.

Allowed senders applies to every way mail reaches a source: Google, Microsoft and IMAP mailboxes, forwarding addresses, and emails you import by hand. The check is always made against the real sender of the email. For a message you forwarded by hand, that's the retailer quoted inside it, not you, so you only ever need to list retailer addresses.

Email from a sender that isn't allowed never becomes an order. It's listed in the Inbox as refused, with the sender that was checked, so a missing entry is easy to spot.

How polling works

Shippified checks every connected Google, Microsoft and IMAP source about once a minute. Forwarding sources don't need checking.

Each order is dated using the email's own date, not the time Shippified read it. An email that's read late still lands on the right day.

Shippified skips a source while its status is anything other than connected, and while a rebuild is running on it.

Sync now, and the last-sync line

Every Google, Microsoft and IMAP source card has a status line and a Sync now button:

• Synced 2m ago (or similar) shows when the last check finished.

• Last sync failed: followed by the provider's error appears when the last check went wrong, for example a wrong IMAP host. It clears by itself on the next successful check.

• Sync now checks the mailbox immediately and tells you the result, such as 2 order emails imported. or Up to date — no new order emails. It's the quickest way to confirm new details work.

Forwarding sources don't have this line, because there's nothing to check: forwarded mail arrives on its own. Developers can trigger the same check through the API. See Getting orders in.

To bring in mail from before you connected, use Rebuild orders from mailbox. See Rebuild from mailbox.

What gets ignored, and why

A typical inbox has far more marketing, account and personal mail than order mail. Shippified only creates an order when an email is clearly about a purchase. Everything else is ignored: it isn't turned into an order and isn't stored.

An email becomes an order when either of these is true:

1. A template matches it. For the built-in retailer templates, that means the email comes from the retailer's domain (for example target.com or a subdomain such as oe.target.com) and its subject reads like an order event, such as "Thanks for your order" or "Your order has shipped".

2. It passes the general rules. It comes from a supported retailer's domain, it contains an order number, and its subject (or the first part of the body) describes an order event such as placed, shipped, delivered or canceled.

So these are ignored:

• Marketing and newsletters, such as "New drops this week!" or "Deals delivered: save 20%", because they don't read like an order event.

• Sign-in codes, password resets and account notices, which have no order number and no order event.

• Seller notices from Amazon. Amazon emails buyers and sellers from the same domain, so subjects about seller payouts, listings, brand approval, feedback removal and replies (subjects starting with "Re:") are always skipped.

• Personal mail and mail from retailers Shippified doesn't recognise. To track another retailer, build a custom email template on the Templates page.

Importing an email by hand

At the bottom of Links → Email, Import an email by hand turns one pasted email into an order:

1. Choose a source under Test against. Its templates and Allowed senders apply.

2. Paste the email. The full original (with its headers) gives the best result; pasted text works too. If what you paste has no From: line, fill in From (sender).

3. Select Run parser. The message Imported — it's in your orders now. confirms it.

Emails you import by hand are never ignored: Shippified assumes you want an order, and marks it Issue if it couldn't read much from it. Importing the same email twice doesn't create a second order.

Important: This creates a real order. To see how Shippified would read an email without creating anything, use the template builder on the Templates page. Paste the email as the sample: its In production panel runs the real parser over it and writes nothing. See Custom templates.

The Inbox: what happened to each email

The Inbox page lists every email that created an order, updated one, or was refused, from any source: mailboxes, forwarding addresses and hand imports. Refused emails include ones from a sender that isn't allowed, and ones that arrived after your plan's monthly limit was reached. Click a row to see what the parser read.

Marketing and other mail that isn't about an order is skipped and not listed, and neither are repeats of an email Shippified already has.

Duplicates can't happen

Every email has a unique ID (its Message-ID), and Shippified records the ID of every email it turns into an order. If the same email is read again, it's skipped. That applies to a re-check of the mailbox, to a rebuild, and to the same message reaching you through two different sources.

Separate emails about the same order (confirmation, shipping, delivery) are meant to combine, and they do. They merge into one order by order number. See Orders and their lifecycle.

Source statuses

The tag on each source card shows its state:

Each card also shows Orders, Tracking (orders with a tracking number) and Review (orders with the Issue status) for that source.

Troubleshooting

The card says "auth failed"

Google or Microsoft: access was revoked, or the permission expired. Open Edit source and select Connect Google account (or Connect Microsoft account) again. Once you approve, the source goes back to connected and starts again with a first check, as described in the polling table above. Anything already imported is skipped automatically.

IMAP: the server rejected the username or password. Common causes:

• Gmail or another provider that needs an app password was given your normal password.

• 2-Step Verification was turned on after you connected, which invalidates plain passwords at some providers.

• The app password was revoked, or your password was changed.

• IMAP access is turned off in your provider's settings.

To fix it, open Edit source, enter the correct username or a new app password, and select Save changes. Saving new details puts the source back to connected and clears the old error, and checking carries on from where it stopped. Select Sync now to confirm straight away. There's no need to delete and re-add the source.

It's connected but nothing shows up

• Read the last-sync line. If it says Last sync failed, the error tells you why. A wrong IMAP host or port doesn't change the status to auth failed, but it does show up here. Compare the host and port with your provider's help pages, save, and select Sync now.

• Check where the mail is. IMAP and Microsoft only read the Inbox. If filters archive or move retailer mail, Shippified won't see it.

• Check the retailer. Built-in support covers Target, Walmart, Amazon and Best Buy. Mail from other stores needs a custom template.

• Check the date. When you first connect, Shippified only reads recent mail (see the polling table above). Run Rebuild orders from mailbox to go further back.

• Check Allowed senders. If the source has a list, the retailer's address or domain must be on it. Refused emails are listed in the Inbox.

• Test one email. Open the template builder on the Templates page, paste a missing email as the sample, and read the In production panel. It shows how the email would be read, or that it would be ignored, without creating an order.

• Check your plan limit. On a plan with a monthly order limit, new orders aren't created once the limit is reached, although updates to existing orders still go through. A rebuild after the limit resets can pick up anything that was skipped.

Forwarded mail is bouncing

Read the bounce message. It gives the reason: an unknown inbound address (was the source deleted?), the plan limit, or a message that's too large.

Forwarded mail isn't bouncing, but no order appears

Check the Inbox. If the email is listed as refused because of its sender, add the retailer's address or domain to Allowed senders, or clear the list. If it isn't listed at all, Shippified didn't recognise it as order mail. See "What gets ignored" above.

Gmail never showed a confirmation code

Check that you added the exact inbound address from the source card, then reload Links → Email. The code appears on the forwarding source within a few seconds of Gmail sending it. If you deleted and re-created the source, its address changed, so add the new address in Gmail.

An imported email says the sender isn't allowed

The source you chose under Test against has Allowed senders set. Check that the email's sender is on the list. If you pasted only the body, fill in From (sender) above the text box so Shippified knows who sent it.