🔁Rebuild orders from a mailbox
Re-read a connected mailbox to bring in older orders or repair them, or re-run parsing on the messages Shippified already has, without losing your own edits.
- Written for
- Anyone with a Gmail, Outlook or IMAP source who wants older orders, or fixed ones
- Applies to
- All plans
- Deprecated
- ＋ Deprecated
Shippified has two repair tools for orders that came from messages:
Rebuild orders from mailbox, on each mailbox source on Links → Email, goes back to your mailbox and re-reads it over a period you choose. Use it to bring in orders from before you connected, and emails that were missed or refused the first time.
Re-run parsing, on the Templates page, re-reads the copies of messages Shippified already has, with your current templates. Use it after you add or fix a template.
This guide explains when to use each, what they change, what they always keep, and how to fix problems.
Which one should I use?
Rebuild orders from mailbox | Re-run parsing | |
|---|---|---|
Where | The clock icon on a source card, Links → Email | The Re-run parsing button, Templates page |
Scope | One email source, over the last 7 days to 1 year | Every order in your account, from email and Discord bots |
Reads | Your live mailbox | Shippified's saved copies of messages that became orders |
Finds emails that were ignored or refused before | Yes, it re-reads everything in the period | No, those were never saved |
Finds emails from before you connected | Yes, up to 1 year back | No |
Works for forwarding sources | No, there's no mailbox to read | Yes, for messages that became orders |
Orders you've edited | Left exactly as they are | Updated, with your edits and sale price carried over |
Order records | Replaced with new ones | Updated in place |
Runs | In the background; you can leave the page | While you wait |
Notifications and webhooks | None | None |
In short:
You changed or added a template and want existing orders to reflect it: use Re-run parsing. It's quick, covers Discord orders too, and keeps your edits.
Emails are missing entirely (from before you connected, ignored, or refused): use Rebuild orders from mailbox.
After you build a template for a store Shippified didn't recognise, the older emails from that store were ignored when they arrived, so Re-run parsing can't see them. Rebuild the mailbox to bring them in.
Rebuild orders from a mailbox
Rebuilding is available on Google, Microsoft and IMAP sources. Forwarding sources don't have the icon, a paused source hides it until you click Resume syncing, and neither does a Google or Microsoft source you haven't signed in to yet (its card says Not connected yet and shows Connect Google or Connect Microsoft instead of Sync now).
Before you start
The source card must show connected. If it shows needs auth or auth failed, Shippified refuses to start the rebuild, before changing anything, with
This mailbox needs to be reconnected before it can be rebuilt. Reconnect it, then try again — nothing was changed.Fix the connection first (see Connect an email inbox), then click Sync now to confirm the mailbox can be read.Make sure the emails you want are still in the mailbox. For IMAP and Microsoft, they must be in the Inbox folder. Google reads across the whole mailbox (not spam or trash).
Pick the shortest period that covers what you need (see the warning under "What a rebuild changes").
- Open the rebuild panel
On Links → Email, click the clock icon (Rebuild orders from mailbox) at the top right of the source card. A panel opens with the message Re-read this mailbox with the current parser and replace the orders it produced in that window. Orders you edited, and orders also seen from a Discord bot, are kept.
- Choose how far back
Under Look back, choose 7 days, 30 days (the default), 90 days or 1 year. The period counts back from now.
- Start it
Click Rebuild, or Cancel to close the panel. The panel changes to Rebuilding from the mailbox… orders will appear as messages are re-read. If the rebuild can't start, the reason appears in red under the buttons and nothing is changed.
- Wait for the summary
The card refreshes itself every few seconds, and orders appear on the Orders page as messages are read. You can leave the page: the rebuild carries on in Shippified. When it's finished, the card shows a line such as Last rebuild 9/25/2026, 9:12:38 PM: 42 order messages read, 310 non-order emails skipped.
How long it takes depends on how many messages arrived in the period. Every message is downloaded and read one at a time, so a year of a busy mailbox takes much longer than a week. The summary appears only at the end.
While a rebuild runs:
The rebuild icon and Sync now are unavailable on that card, and the regular once-a-minute check skips that source. New mail isn't lost: it's picked up on the next check after the rebuild.
Starting another rebuild on the same source is refused with
A rebuild is already running for this source.
What a rebuild changes
A rebuild works in three stages.
1. Check the mailbox. Before touching any order, Shippified signs in and makes sure it can read the mailbox. If it can't (a changed password, removed access, a wrong IMAP host), it stops, and the summary says Couldn't read the mailbox, so nothing was changed: followed by the reason. Your orders are left as they were.
2. Clear out. Shippified removes the orders that meet all of these:
They came from this email source.
They're dated within the period. An order is dated by its email, not by when Shippified imported it.
Email is the only way Shippified ever saw them: no Discord bot post and no manual entry for the same order.
You've never edited them and they have no sale price.
3. Re-read. Shippified reads every message received in the period through the same steps as new mail, including the source's Allowed senders and template settings. Order emails become orders again, status emails merge into their orders, and everything else is skipped. Mail refused the first time (by Allowed senders or the plan limit) gets another chance under your current settings. Emails from orders you deleted by hand are left out (see below).
The clear-out happens before the re-read. If some of those emails are no longer in the mailbox (you deleted them, or for IMAP and Microsoft moved them out of the Inbox), their orders are removed and can't be rebuilt. Choose the shortest period that covers what you need.
A rebuild doesn't bring back orders you deleted by hand. Their emails are skipped and show as Skipped on the Inbox page. To get one of those orders back, paste its email into Import an email by hand on Links → Email.
What a rebuild keeps
Your own work is never overwritten by a rebuild:
Order | What happens |
|---|---|
From this source only, never edited, no sale price | Replaced with a freshly read copy |
You edited any field, or added a sale price (in the order panel or through the API) | Kept exactly as it is |
Also seen from a Discord monitor bot | Kept exactly as it is |
Also added by hand | Kept exactly as it is |
From a different email source | Not touched |
Dated before the period | Not touched |
Emails that belong to a kept order are recognised as already imported, and later status emails still merge into it. Every email is tracked by its unique message ID, so a rebuild never creates duplicates.
Replaced orders are new records with new IDs. A saved link to one of them, such as a share snapshot, an order ID kept by an integration, or Open parsed order on an old Inbox entry, points to an order that no longer exists.
Limits
Period: 1 to 365 days. The menu offers 7, 30, 90 days and 1 year.
Up to 5,000 messages per rebuild. If more than 5,000 messages arrived in the period, the newest 5,000 are read and the oldest are left out (the same for Google, Microsoft and IMAP). If you hit the limit, choose a shorter period.
One rebuild at a time per source.
Plan limit: if your plan has a monthly order limit and it's already reached, the rebuild can't create new orders (it can still merge emails into existing ones). Orders the rebuild replaces keep the month they were first added in, so a rebuild doesn't use extra orders. Orders for emails Shippified never had before count toward the current month. See Plans and billing.
Quiet: a rebuild is a history import. It sends no push notifications and doesn't trigger your outbound webhooks or integrations. The emails it turns into orders are still logged on the Inbox page.
Re-run parsing
Re-run parsing takes the saved copies of messages behind your orders, from email and from Discord bots, and reads them again with your current templates. It never contacts your mailbox.
- Open Templates
Click Templates in the sidebar.
- Click Re-run parsing
Click Re-run parsing at the top of the page, next to Build template. The button shows Re-parsing… while it works. Stay on the page until it finishes.
- Read the result
A line under the header summarises what happened, for example Re-parsed 120 orders: 14 updated, 3 merged. If any were removed, it adds , 2 removed as non-order mail. If you have no orders with saved messages, it says No orders with stored messages yet — new mail will be re-parseable.
What it does to each order:
Order | What happens |
|---|---|
Has saved messages | Rebuilt from them with the current templates, each source's template settings and each bot's pinned template |
Has fields you edited | Those fields keep your values |
Has a sale price, or carrier tracking details (estimated and actual delivery, addresses, weight, signed by, service level) | Those are kept |
Delivered according to the carrier | Stays delivered |
Now shares an order number with another order | The two are merged into the older one |
None of its messages are recognised as order mail any more | Removed, unless you've edited it or added a sale price |
Has no saved messages (added by hand, or imported before Shippified kept copies) | Left alone |
Messages you imported by hand are always treated as order mail, so re-parsing never removes those orders as non-order mail.
Merging and removal can't be undone. If a template change makes Shippified stop recognising some emails, re-parsing removes those orders (unless you've edited them). Test a template on a sample in the template builder before re-running parsing across your account.
Troubleshooting
The summary says "Couldn't read the mailbox, so nothing was changed"
Shippified couldn't sign in, and no orders were touched. The text after the colon is the provider's reason. Fix the connection (reconnect Google or Microsoft, or update the IMAP password or host with Edit source), click Sync now to confirm, then start the rebuild again. See Connect an email inbox.
Clicking Rebuild shows "This mailbox needs to be reconnected before it can be rebuilt"
The source's status is needs auth or auth failed, so Shippified can't read the mailbox. It refused before removing anything: your orders are unchanged. Reconnect the source (for Google or Microsoft, open Edit source and click Connect Google account or Connect Microsoft account; for IMAP, correct the password or host with Edit source), click Sync now to confirm, then rebuild. See Connect an email inbox.
Clicking Rebuild shows "A rebuild is already running for this source."
Wait for the current one to finish. The card shows Rebuilding from the mailbox… until it does.
There's no rebuild icon on my source
Either the source is a Google or Microsoft source you haven't signed in to yet (the card says Not connected yet; click Connect Google or Connect Microsoft first), or it's a forwarding source, which has no mailbox to re-read. For a forwarding source, forward the missing emails again, or paste them into Import an email by hand on Links → Email. Re-run parsing still works for forwarded emails that became orders.
The summary shows fewer orders than I expected
"Order messages read" counts emails that created or updated an order. Several emails about one order (confirmation, shipping, delivery) end up as one order.
Emails already behind a kept order (one you edited, or one also seen from a bot) are skipped, not re-read.
Mail outside the Inbox folder isn't read for IMAP and Microsoft sources.
Mail from stores Shippified doesn't recognise is counted as non-order mail. Build a custom template, then rebuild.
If you have more than 5,000 messages in the period, the oldest were left out. Rebuild again with a shorter period.
If your plan's monthly limit was reached, new orders weren't created.
The summary says "Interrupted by a restart — run it again."
Shippified restarted during the rebuild (for example, during an update), so it stopped part-way. Run it again with the same period. It's safe to repeat: emails already imported are skipped, and orders it already rebuilt are simply rebuilt again.
Will a rebuild bring back orders I deleted?
No. Emails from orders you deleted by hand are skipped and marked Skipped on the Inbox page. If you want one back, paste the email into Import an email by hand on Links → Email. A new email about the same order number (a later shipping notice, say) does create a new order, because it's a different message.
Re-run parsing removed orders I wanted
They were removed because none of their messages are recognised as order mail with your current templates, and you hadn't edited them. Fix or restore the template that used to match them. For a mailbox source, then run Rebuild orders from mailbox over the period they were in to bring them back.
An order still looks wrong after re-parsing
Fields you've edited keep your values, so re-parsing won't change them. Check the order's messages on the Inbox page (Stored message (headers + text) shows what was read), then adjust the template in the builder and run Re-run parsing again. See Custom templates.