IMAP polling is slow, unreliable, and requires managing persistent connections
Regex parsing of email content breaks constantly with different email clients
Forwarding rules lose metadata and make threading impossible
Running your own mail server means managing spam filters, deliverability, and compliance
You shouldn't have to build this yourself.
Receive structured JSON the moment an email arrives. No polling, no delays.
Automatic parsing of In-Reply-To and References headers to match replies to threads.
Get the reply body without quoted text, signatures, or email client cruft.
Attachments are extracted, stored, and delivered as downloadable URLs.
Your app sends an email notification with a unique reply address.
They respond directly from Gmail, Outlook, or any email client.
The reply is parsed and structured into JSON automatically.
Your endpoint receives the reply with thread context.
The reply appears in your app instantly, threaded correctly.
Mailhooks sends a structured webhook payload when a reply arrives.
{
"id": "msg_abc123",
"from": "[email protected]",
"to": "[email protected]",
"subject": "Re: Your support request",
"text": "Thanks, that fixed the issue!",
"html": "Thanks, that fixed the issue!
",
"headers": {
"in-reply-to": "",
"references": ""
},
"attachments": []
} // Express webhook handler
app.post('/webhooks/email-reply', (req, res) => {
const { from, to, text, headers } = req.body;
// Extract ticket ID from the reply address
const ticketId = to.match(/reply\+ticket-(\d+)@/)?.[1];
if (ticketId) {
// Add the reply to the ticket thread
await addReplyToTicket(ticketId, {
from,
content: text,
inReplyTo: headers['in-reply-to']
});
}
res.status(200).send('OK');
});Every inbox can be configured with sender filtering rules. You can whitelist specific domains or email addresses, or use our webhook to implement your own spam filtering logic. Emails that don't match your rules are automatically rejected.
Webhooks are typically delivered within 100-500ms of email receipt. We process emails in real-time with no polling delays. For high-availability applications, we also offer webhook retries with exponential backoff.
Mailhooks is built specifically for inbound email. We offer simpler setup (no DNS changes required for testing), better attachment handling with direct download URLs, and a developer-first API for fetching emails programmatically—perfect for E2E testing.
Yes! You can connect your own domain with simple DNS configuration. We also provide free subdomains on inbox.mailhooks.dev for testing and development.
We automatically retry failed webhooks with exponential backoff for up to 24 hours. You can also use our API to fetch any missed emails. All emails are stored and accessible via the dashboard.
Takes ~2 minutes — no email infrastructure required.
Sign up for free in seconds.
Get a unique email address for your use case.
Point to your endpoint and start receiving emails.