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What email intake does

Email intake lets your form accept submissions by email. Instead of filling out a web form, respondents send an email to an auto-generated mailbox address. Filla parses the email content and creates a record in your Airtable table.

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Setting up email intake

1

Open the Form Settings dialog

Click the gear icon in the editor toolbar.
2

Change the intake method

In the General tab, find the Intake method selector and switch from Web to Email.
3

Choose a capture mode

Select how email content maps to your form fields (see below).
4

Copy the mailbox address

Filla generates a unique email address for your form. Share this address with respondents or connect it to your email forwarding rules.

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Capture modes

ModeHow it works
AIFilla uses AI to read the email and intelligently map content to your form fields. You can provide custom instructions to guide the parsing.
SequentialEmail content is mapped to fields in the order they appear on the form.

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AI instructions

When using AI capture mode, the AI instructions textarea lets you provide specific guidance. For example:
  • “The email subject line contains the project name. The body contains a description and budget amount.”
  • “Extract the sender’s name from the signature block.”

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Mailbox address

Each email intake form gets a unique mailbox address, generated automatically. You cannot customize this address. Share it with respondents or set up email forwarding from your own inbox.

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What changes in email intake mode

When a form is in email intake mode, many field-level settings are hidden because they do not apply to email-based submissions. Hidden settings include:
  • Placeholder text, default values, and display styles
  • Show/hide rules and conditional read-only rules
  • File upload restrictions (file type, max size, max count)
  • Linked record editing, creating, and filtering options
  • Email verification (OTP), phone format validation, and address autocomplete
The editor hides these sections automatically so you only see settings relevant to email parsing.

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Configuring the inbox

The Form Settings dialog shows three additional tabs when email intake is active:
TabWhat it shows
InboxIncoming emails and their processing status
Email ParsingParsing configuration and field mapping results
Recent ActivityA log of recently processed emails

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When to use email intake

  • Collecting data from people who prefer email over web forms
  • Processing inbound requests (support tickets, vendor submissions, RFPs)
  • Automating data entry from structured email templates