FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Straight answers about how mailsocket receives, parses and deletes mail.
How long is mail kept?
Messages are purged from the live database after the retention window of your plan: 1 day on Free, 7 days on Pro, 30 days on Scale and 90 days on Business. A scheduled purge permanently deletes committed messages after the applicable window. Database backups may retain deleted messages for up to 14 days, and undelivered mail may sit in the mail queue for up to 5 days before final deletion.
What OTP formats are detected, and with what confidence?
We extract candidate codes of 4 to 8 digits (or groups like 123-456) and score each with a confidence value between 0 and 1. A candidate near a verification keyword (such as code, OTP, verification, passcode, PIN) scores 0.95; an unlabelled numeric candidate scores 0.35. Order numbers, invoice totals, ZIP codes, phone numbers and years are rejected. Pass min_confidence to the wait endpoint to only accept codes above a threshold.
Do you follow magic links?
No. We extract the most likely magic link from the message body and return it in the magic_link field. We never click or follow it; your test opens the link.
What are the rate limits?
Each API key can make 120 requests per minute and 600 per hour on every plan. Concurrent waits per account: 2 Free / 3 Pro / 8 Scale / 16 Business. Details and headers are in the API reference.
What happens to mail if mailsocket is down?
Our mail server accepts a message only after it has been stored in the database. If storing fails, the message stays in the mail server's queue and delivery is retried for up to 5 days. If our mail server itself is unreachable, the sending server keeps the message and retries, as SMTP requires. A wait that is open during an outage returns an error or 204; call it again once the API responds.
How do I erase my data (GDPR)?
Delete your account from Settings. This permanently erases your account, inboxes and messages. Database backups may keep erased data for up to 14 days. For access or correction requests, email privacy@mailsocket.app.
Do you support SMS?
No. mailsocket receives email only.
Do you return attachments?
Not yet. We extract the subject, From/To/Cc, the plain-text and HTML bodies, the OTP and the magic link. Attachment bodies are skipped (never treated as message text) but are not returned as files.