Temp Mail API for automated email testing

What you can automate

• Create a 24-hour temporary mailbox.
• List mailboxes created through your API account.
• Read messages from a mailbox.
• Read the latest verification code endpoint.
• Delete a mailbox when the test is finished.
• Read the same mailbox through TLS IMAP at imap.inboxes.run:993.

REST API quick start

The API base URL is https://inboxes.run/api/v1. API requests use a Bearer key generated after sign-in.

import json, os, time, urllib.request
API = "https://inboxes.run/api/v1"
KEY = os.environ["INBOXESRUN_API_KEY"]

def call(path, method="GET", body=None):
    data = None if body is None else json.dumps(body).encode()
    req = urllib.request.Request(API + path, data=data, method=method, headers={
        "Authorization": f"Bearer {KEY}",
        "Content-Type": "application/json",
    })
    with urllib.request.urlopen(req) as response:
        return json.load(response)

box = call("/mailboxes", "POST", {})
print("address:", box["address"])

while True:
    messages = call(f"/mailboxes/{box['id']}/messages")
    print(json.dumps(messages, indent=2))
    time.sleep(3)

Endpoints used in a typical test

POST   /mailboxes
GET    /mailboxes
GET    /mailboxes/{id}/messages
GET    /mailboxes/{id}/latest-code
DELETE /mailboxes/{id}

REST API or IMAP?

Use REST when your test runner wants JSON and simple polling. Use IMAP when the application or test framework already speaks email. Inboxes.Run IMAP is receive-only and read-only.

Important limits

Temporary mailboxes are not permanent email accounts. A normal temporary inbox lives for 24 hours. Current quotas are shown in the API / IMAP area after sign-in. Do not use a temporary address as the only recovery channel for an important long-lived account.

Try it

Open a temporary inbox in the browser for free. For programmatic use, sign in and open API / IMAP to generate an API key and see the current limits.

Open Inboxes.Run · API / IMAP