By email

Most documents worth extracting already arrive by email. This route removes the step where a human downloads an attachment and re-uploads it.

The parser's own address

Every Parser has a private Inbound email address. Find it in the parser's Settings, under Email Forwarding — and it is repeated on the Documents page, next to the upload area, so you can copy it without leaving the screen you are already on.

Anything sent there is processed against that parser. Two ways to use it:

Forward manually. Fine while you are trying things out, and fine forever for low volume.

Set up an automatic rule. In your mail client, forward anything matching a filter — from a supplier, or with an attachment and "invoice" in the subject — to the parser address. Now nobody touches it again.

Give the address out. Ask a supplier to send invoices there directly, or use it as the billing contact on an account. Documents arrive already extracted.

One email is one document

This matters more than it sounds.

Parsli combines the email body, the sender, and every attachment into a single Document. It does not create one record per attachment.

The reason is that context lives in the covering note. "Please see attached, revised — ignore the version I sent Tuesday" is information about the PDF, and splitting them apart throws it away.

It also avoids a failure that used to be common: signature logos and footer images are attachments too, and treating each as a document produces a pile of records extracted from a company logo.

Connecting a Gmail mailbox

Instead of forwarding, Parsli can watch a real mailbox.

1. From the parser's Outbound, add a Gmail Inbox integration.
2. Authorise your Google account.
3. Set a from filter — only mail from this sender is processed, for example invoices@supplier.com.
4. Activate it.

Parsli checks periodically and processes matching messages as they arrive.

Forwarding or Gmail connection?

Forwarding is more flexible and needs no account access. The Gmail connection is easier to reason about because the whole setup lives in one place.

Letting colleagues send documents

The Inbox gives a parser a shared drop-off point with its own access rules — for people who should be able to send documents in without you provisioning them a Parsli account.

Set it up under Inbox on the parser.

Checking what arrived

Emailed documents appear on the parser's Documents page like any other, with source_type recorded as email. That field is also in the webhook payload, so downstream systems can treat emailed documents differently from uploaded ones without a second parser.

When something does not arrive

In order of likelihood:

1. Sent to the wrong address. Each parser has a different one; check you copied the right parser's.
2. The sender filter excluded it. On a Gmail connection, only the configured sender is processed.
3. Out of credits. Extraction stops at zero. Check Settings.
4. The parser is paused. A paused parser rejects new documents.