An average email user receives 121 emails every workday. It’s hard to remember every detail that came with those emails. That’s where email parsing tools come into play.
Especially for online businesses or agencies relying heavily on email communication, email parsing can take loads of data entry off their shoulders.
But – how?
In this article, I’ll tell you all about email parsing and the best email parsing tools available in the market today.
Let’s get started!
What Is Email Parsing?
Email parsing, often known as inbox parsing, is the process of extracting data from incoming emails. Data such as name, contact information, or any specific details, including the ones contained in documents attached to the email.
How Does Email Parsing Work?
Email parser software is the best and most efficient way to carry out email parsing.
Email parsers use a parsing API to extract data from email. The API pulls data from selected email fields like subject line, email body, and attachments, including photos, CSV, or PDF files.
Let me break down the entire process for you 👇
- Users provide permission to an email parser tool to access their inbox
- The email parsing program, after that, establishes a connection with the email server to obtain incoming emails
- Once the emails are available to the email parser tool, a parsing algorithm will extract the assigned data fields from the email
- For additional processing and analysis, the retrieved data is arranged into a structured format, such as CSV or JSON
👀 Note: Users can use the retrieved data to start processes in other systems, such as tracking leads, processing orders, or updating customer records, depending on the particular application.
However, here’s the deal:
Email parsing works similarly to web scraping. Except that parsing tools cannot read data from HTML web page documents – email parsers can only extract data from emails.
It’s best used to organize unstructured data. Moreover, most email parsing tools store these data sets directly into your existing CRM or ERP systems. Removing the need for manual data entry.
Benefits of Email Parsing
Email parsing can come with a range of benefits for your business.
#1. Save Time
Imagine getting the data extracted and stored in a centralized database while you’re having a good night’s sleep. Sounds peaceful, isn’t it? 😴
The right email parser can save you hours. It can:
- Manage and organize received documents
- Generate reports
- Extract field data from emails
- Transfer data to different CRMs and ERP tools
And most importantly, it won’t complain even if you run it 24/7, which is something I never expect from human operators.
#2. Automation
Another time saver is the automation that email parsers bring in. Based on a set of rules (which you define), you can automate the entire process – from extraction to final data entry into your favorite CRM.
What’s more, you can trigger automated workflows to collect different categories of data. An email parser can extract data such as:
- financial data (account balances, transactions),
- leads and customer data (email, phone, address),
- booking information (guest number, booking dates, comments),
- order data (order amount, items, quantities),
And much more.
Further, it can also identify metadata to streamline workflows, such as
- Timestamps (the moment an email was received)
- Sender and recipient email addresses
- Reply-to emails
#3. Improving Data Quality
I think that even the most skilled human data entry personnel cannot be 100% accurate.
Here’s why:
Data input errors significantly decline when manual processes are switched to AI (Artificial Intelligence).
An advanced email parser ensures reliability in data collection and management. Be it in hundreds or thousands, you have both accuracy and precision in securely collecting data.
Key Features to Look For In An Ideal Email Parsing Software
Here are some key attributes of the industry-best email parsing tools:
✅ Easy to Set Up and User-Friendly: While email parsing APIs can be customized, understanding basic features such as data processing can make it more user-friendly for you and your team members. Even better, it can drastically reduce set-up time for the software.
✅ Extract Relevant Information Accurately: Look for tools that employ AI models to identify and extract relevant data. Make sure the software allows the creation of custom rules and has pre-set templates and other options that help extract precise information securely and faster.
✅ Integrate with Third-Party Applications: Extracting data is only half of what email parsers do; the other half is to automatically route the relevant information to existing tools like ERPs, CRMs, or accounting software.
✅ Data Validation and Security: This is critical to ensure that the data extracted from emails is clean, secure, and ethically sourced. Verifying extracted email data provides an extra layer of accuracy while ensuring data privacy and protection.
Best Email Parsing Tools
Zapier
Zapier’s email parser is a fully automated tool that helps extract and collect data from incoming emails.
Features
- Custom templates to highlight the exact text and data you wish to extract and let Zapier automatically extract it from all future emails
- Choose what data to collect and which CRM or ERP solution needs to be storage
- Integrates with 6000+ apps, including your favorite CRM
- Intuitive dashboard to view all extracted data and information under one roof
Apart from the pros, the Email parser by Zapier has its drawbacks. One of the most common is when emails get parsed incorrectly. However, Zapier offers a way to bail out if this happens.
Email Parser
Email Parser is a fully-featured and managed email automation solution. The tool automatically captures text and data from incoming emails and stores them in your favorite CRM or ERP systems.
Features
- Scans inbox for new emails every 10 seconds automatically
- Integrates with Google Sheets, Excel, Zapier, and other third-party apps
- Can extract data from various types of email attachments, including PDF, Excel, XML, and other formats
- Provides a rule-based system for defining parsing rules
- Built-in text editor (very basic version)
Further, Email Parser can be used via the Windows app or on the cloud via the web app. In contrast, the Windows app gives privacy and full control over the automation process.
MailParser.io
MailParser is a no-code email parsing software that automatically extracts key data from your emails. Further, the no-code interface makes automating email workflows a piece of cake.
Features
- Automatic Rule Generation with Intelligent Parser Creator
- Hundreds of Parsing Rule Templates from The Most Popular Sites
- Flexible Data Download in Multiple Formats: XLS, CSV, JSON, XML
- Seamless integration with 5000+ Apps for Data Transfer
The sheer automation and user-friendly interface have made MailParser the go-to tool in various industries, including real estate, e-commerce, travel and tourism, and logistics and delivery.
Parseur
Parseur is an AI-powered email parsing software that makes data extraction from emails and attachments quicker, easier, and faster. With AI involved, Parser is compatible with all email formats, including Text emails, Rich Text emails (HTML), and Multipart MIME emails.
Features
- Built-in OCR technology to extract data from text and image-based email attachments, including hand-written documents
- Use AI to automate data extraction; simply select data fields once and let Parseur AI take it from there
- It has a library of customizable templates to automatically parse documents such as Food orders, Real Estate leads, Job Applications, Google Alerts
- Send and store data in thousands of third-party apps using Parseur in-built integrations and extend the limit with Zapier
- Get access to a detailed log for every step and activity that goes on with parsing each email
The best part is that Parseur is cloud-based and works from your web browser. Hence, it’s easier to keep track of incoming emails and data extracted from them on the fly.
Parsio
Parsio helps businesses, and marketers extract data from emails in real-time. Even better, the tool integrates AI to make the process error-free and dynamic.
Simply create and send a sample email, highlight the data to extract, and let Parsio handle the entire parsing process.
Features
- Powerful AI to parse email signatures and extract contact information automatically
- Has AI-powered OCR technology facilitating data extraction from PDF files, scanned images, and photos
- The table extraction feature helps extract the entire table rather than the data inside
- Give natural language commands to extract data from human-written emails, CVs, and unstructured documents using a GPT-powered AI conversational bot
Parsio’s email parsing solution popularly integrates with featured apps like Google Sheets, Slack, Trello, Webhooks, and more. Additionally, use the platform’s integration with Zapier to connect 6000+ apps.
Mailgun
Mailgun is an all-in-one email solution with robust inbound routing and parsing features to handle replies and incoming emails easily.
The platform is trusted by over 150k+ companies and teams, including the ones from Dribble, Microsoft, SubStack, and many more.
Features
- Use inbound routes to parse complex or unstructured incoming emails into UTF-8 JSON for easy readings
- Tailor the parsing process to your specific needs with a flexible rules engine, allowing for personalized handling of diverse email content.
- Automate parsing workflows and processes to simplify cutting through the fluff and extracting data from funnel messages without human interference
- Built-in scalable Email API makes it easy to integrate Mailgun with your existing apps, CRMs, and ERP systems
Mailgun offers a 30-day risk-free trial to new users. Post this, you can continue enjoying the services for as low as $35/month.
Nanonets
Nanonets is known for using AI to streamline and automate business processes. Its AI-driven email parser tool is another excellent example of automating data entry processes by parsing emails.
Features
- It has an AI-based email parser to handle emails and data variations without worrying about custom rules or templates
- Extensive parsing capabilities from up to 20 attached documents in multiple formats such as PDFs, image files, CSV, Excel, JSON, XML, and more
- Quickly transform the extracted data into any data format or file format you choose
- Integrates with your favorite ERP, CRM, accounting software, or other business applications natively or via API
And, of course, automate every step in the parsing process within clicks. For individuals and teams looking to try out the platform, you get 500 pages for free!
Best industry-wide Use Cases of Email Parsing Tools
There are plenty of use cases for email parsing tools. However, we will stick to three major industries – travel, e-commerce, and real estate – to see how they use email parsers.
#1. Travel and Tourism
The travel and tourism industry is set off to mark new heights after caving to the Covid market crash.
However, now that travel has resumed. The biggest issue for travel companies is efficiently handling the sheer volume of customer queries and requests.
Another bottleneck is manually adding the data to your CRMs to keep up with your daily request flow. Data such as:
- Booking requests
- Customer details
- Check-in and check-out dates
- Customer Inquiries
- Reservation confirmation
And more.
Giltedge, a luxury tour operator specializing in Safari holidays in South Africa, uses MailParser.io (an email parsing tool) to streamline email workflows.
Giltedge uses email parsing software for three primary purposes:
- Automatically load web and email queries to CRM
- Extract relevant data from new or confirmed booking emails and load it in Google Sheets (for backups)
- Provide better customer experience by equipping sales teams with customer journey data–from inquiry to purchase and travel– under one roof
While it has tremendously benefited from using parsing tools, it will continue to do so in the future.
#2. E-Commerce
❓Did you know: 83.7% of the top 1,000 online retailers use email to connect with customers?
Every e-commerce purchase triggers a series of emails containing order information, invoices, and updates.
Email parser tools help automate and optimize order fulfillment, shipment, and customer follow-ups.
Shopkeep, an online retail store, uses email parsing software as its core routing app. Shopkeep uses it to extract data from incoming emails related to:
- Order confirmation and fulfillment
- Logistic and delivery updates
- And Sales receipts
Moreover, businesses use email parsing software for lead management and customer sentiment analysis.
#3. Real-Estate
Ineto real-estate services leverage email parsers to automate lead management and data entry workflows.
This not only helps them streamline the processes but also enables them to move from a cluttered inbox to a centralized, organized way to manage customer data.
Wrapping Up
The right email parsing software can make 📈or 📉 break your business.
In the market, you would find multiple email parsing software options. However, the right inbox parser for your organization will depend on your unique business needs.
An advanced email parsing tool can benefit your organization, whether you’re an established business trying to expand or a startup responding to increasing client demand.
Starting today, leverage email parsers to stay on top of all your business communications!
Next, check out the best data extraction tools to simplify your business processes.