One of the features we have received questions about is the parsing of links which a part of the email message object in the messages API.
Example Email Message Object
{
"_id": "BotvTxaona7gLID1Adtpfj8Fnfi7HSSv-0",
"from": [
{
"address": "[email protected]",
"name": "Microsoft Store"
}
],
"to": [
{
"address": "[email protected]",
"name": ""
}
],
"cc": null,
"bcc": null,
"subject": "Ahoy, Sea of Thieves for PC is here",
"savedBy": null,
"originalInbox": "[email protected]",
"inbox": "[email protected]",
"domain": "mailsac.com",
"received": "2018-03-29T18:28:07.732Z",
"size": 23420,
"attachments": ["c830ee26e0a326e0a30c585494793479"],
"ip": "65.55.234.211",
"via": "144.202.71.79",
"folder": "inbox",
"labels": [],
"read": null,
"rtls": true,
"links": [
"https://support.xbox.com/games/game-titles/xbox-play-anywhere-help",
"https://e.microsoft.com/Key-3567701.C.CQZpy.J.K0.-.CpMBp0",
"https://account.microsoft.com/profile/unsubscribe?CTID=0&ECID=jIce0uXtDC5qRlyCYqZsz5yCL"
],
"spam": 0.331
}
In this example there are 4 links that have been parsed from the email.
HTML vs Plain Text
Email messages are generally sent in with two content-type encodings. The first is text/plain
, this format is designed for email clients that do not support HTML. The second, text/html
, is designed for email clients that support HTML.
What Links Are Parsed?
Mailsac only parses links found in the text/plain
section. Marketing emails may contain dozens of tracking links in their HTML formatted emails, making it hard to determine which links are important. If a link is important for the customer to see, it is almost always included in both the text/html
and text/plain
section.
As an example, the latest email I received from Del Taco contained 19 links. How many of those links were present in the text/plain
section? 1 link, the unsubscribe button.
What other questions do you have about our processing of messages?