# `bird email inbound-messages`

## Usage

```bash
bird email inbound-messages
```

## Description

Read the emails received at your inbound addresses. Bird parses each received
message into metadata, a body, and an attachment manifest.

get returns parsed metadata (not the body); body returns the parsed HTML and
text; attachments lists the attachment metadata. raw and attachment download
raw bytes (the RFC 5322 message and one attachment) to a file or stdout.

Reads return JSON; list is paginated.

## Procedure

**Read a received email**

Read a received email's parsed metadata, then its body and attachments. The body and attachment list are separate reads, so a large message is fetched only when you need it.

1. `bird email inbound-messages get` — Returns parsed metadata (sender, subject, received time, authentication results). The body is not included here; fetch it separately. Next: bird email inbound-messages body or bird email inbound-messages attachments

## Commands

| Name                                                                    | Description                             |
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------- |
| [`attachment`](/docs/cli/reference/email-inbound-messages-attachment)   | Download a received email's attachment  |
| [`attachments`](/docs/cli/reference/email-inbound-messages-attachments) | List a received email's attachments     |
| [`body`](/docs/cli/reference/email-inbound-messages-body)               | Get a received email's body             |
| [`get`](/docs/cli/reference/email-inbound-messages-get)                 | Get a received email                    |
| [`list`](/docs/cli/reference/email-inbound-messages-list)               | List received emails                    |
| [`raw`](/docs/cli/reference/email-inbound-messages-raw)                 | Download a received email's raw content |