Everything arriving in Outlook, turned into fields
Outlook receives the mail. Parseur reads it properly. Set one auto-forward rule and Parseur extracts the fields you name from the body and from PDF or scanned attachments, then sends them wherever the data actually needs to be. Outlook rules can move a message to a folder. They cannot tell you what is inside it.
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Supplier invoices and statements
Parseur extracts supplier, reference, dates, and line items from the invoices arriving as Outlook attachments and pushes them to your accounting system or spreadsheet.
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Lead and enquiry notifications
Parseur captures contact details from the notification emails your website and providers send to a shared Outlook inbox, so each lead reaches the CRM without anyone reading the message first.
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Shared and departmental mailboxes
Parseur handles the high-traffic shared mailboxes where orders, requests, and confirmations pile up, turning a queue of unread mail into rows a team can actually work from.
How the Outlook integration works
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1. Create your Parseur mailbox
- Sign up and get a dedicated email address where your documents land.
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2. Forward your emails
- Send emails manually or set up auto forwarding so every new one arrives on its own.
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3. AI extracts the data
- Parseur reads each email and pulls out the fields you need as structured data.
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4. Data lands in Outlook
- Parseur pushes the parsed data straight to Outlook in real time with the native integration.
What is Parseur?
Parseur is a powerful document processing software to extract text from emails, PDFs and documents and automate your workflow. All Parseur features.
What is Outlook?
Microsoft Outlook is Microsoft's email client solution where you can easily organize your emails and calendar in one place. All your email accounts can be brought in one spot so that you stay on top of your inbox or meeting invites. Microsoft Outlook is part of the Microsoft Office suite and integrates with Microsoft Exchange.
Trusted for email intake in production
Emonkey builds API integrations for accounting systems across Scandinavia and receives client files by email all day. Founder Piet Deprez replaced a mail-alias setup with Parseur mailboxes to get reliable, webhook-enabled intake, and has run it in production for years since.
- Downtime across Emonkey's years running Parseur in production
- 0
- Documents processed by Parseur since 2016
- 100M+
- Parseur rating on Capterra and GetApp
- 5/5
Outlook sits at the center of most Microsoft 365 environments, and a huge share of business-critical data arrives there every day: lead notifications, supplier invoices, order confirmations, shipping alerts. The problem isn't receiving those emails. It's getting the data out of them and into wherever it actually needs to go.
Below is an honest look at your options for parsing Outlook emails, when each one makes sense, and a step-by-step setup using Parseur.
Key Takeaways
- Parseur extracts data from Outlook email bodies and attachments (PDFs, images, scanned documents) using AI, with no code required.
- Set up an Outlook auto-forward rule to send matching emails to Parseur automatically. Extracted data then flows to Excel, Google Sheets, a CRM, or 6,000+ other apps in real time.
- Power Automate handles simple email body text natively within Microsoft 365 but can't process PDF attachments without the paid AI Builder add-on. Parseur covers attachments on its base plan.
- AI-powered extraction adapts when email layouts change, so parsing rules don't break when a sender reformats their template.
- There's a free plan with no credit card required.
What data can you extract from Outlook emails?
Parseur can pull any field that appears consistently across similar emails:
- Email metadata: sender name and address, recipient, subject line, date and time received
- Body text fields: names, phone numbers, addresses, order numbers, prices, dates, tracking numbers, and any structured text that repeats across similar emails
- Table rows: line items from order confirmations, invoice tables, product lists
- Attachment content: structured data from PDF invoices, scanned documents, image receipts, and Word files attached to the email
Four ways to parse Outlook emails
Most teams consider these approaches when automating Outlook data extraction:
Power Automate is Microsoft's native automation platform and the most obvious starting point for Outlook users. Its Outlook connector triggers on new emails and can extract basic fields from the email body. It works well for simple, structured notification emails within Microsoft 365. The limitations: it doesn't process PDF or image attachments without the additional AI Builder add-on (which costs extra), and it relies on text patterns that break when email formats change. For body-only parsing in a Microsoft ecosystem, it's a solid free option.
Zapier Email Parser is a free tool that extracts data from email body text using fixed templates. You forward emails to a Zapier address, highlight the fields you want, and Zapier routes the data to connected apps. It doesn't process attachments and breaks when email layouts change. Good for simple, stable email formats with no attachment data.
Mailparser uses conditional rule-based parsing for email bodies and attachments. It handles more email types than Zapier Email Parser and supports webhooks and integrations. Rules need updating when email formats change, which adds maintenance overhead for high-volume workflows.
Parseur is an AI-powered email parser that handles both email body text and attachments without fixed rules. It adapts automatically when layouts change, processes PDF and scanned attachments with built-in OCR, and connects to Power Automate, Zapier, Make, and 6,000+ other apps. It's a paid service once you're past the free plan limit.
For one-off extractions from stable email formats, Power Automate or Zapier Email Parser may be all you need. For recurring workflows, attachment parsing, or emails that change layout, Parseur is the more resilient option.
How to extract Outlook email data with Parseur
You'll need a free Parseur account. No credit card is required.
Step 1: Forward your Outlook emails to Parseur
Copy your Parseur mailbox address and forward a sample Outlook email to it. The email appears in your mailbox within seconds, along with any attachments.
For ongoing automation, set up an auto-forwarding rule in Outlook. Go to Settings → Mail → Rules → New rule, set your conditions (by sender, subject keywords, or "has attachment"), and set the action to Forward to your Parseur mailbox address. Every matching email is sent to Parseur automatically from that point.
Step 2: Define the fields you want to extract
Once the email appears in Parseur, highlight any piece of text you want to capture and give it a field name, for example "Customer Name," "Invoice Number," or "Order Total." Parseur's AI learns from your selection and applies the same extraction logic to every future email of that type. No regex or code needed.
For PDF or image attachments, Parseur detects them automatically and lets you define extraction fields from the attachment content the same way as the email body.
Step 3: Export the extracted data
Once Parseur is processing your Outlook emails, choose where the data goes:
- Download as Excel, CSV, or JSON for manual exports
- Excel Online: push rows automatically via Power Automate or Zapier
- Google Sheets: new rows added in real time as each email is processed
- Power Automate: build Microsoft 365 workflows with SharePoint, Dynamics 365, SQL Server, and Azure services
- Zapier or Make: connect to HubSpot, Salesforce, Airtable, Slack, and 6,000+ other apps
For on-demand exports, go to Export, then Download. Parseur exports the data as an Excel, CSV, or JSON file you can open directly.
To push data to Power Automate, click Export, then Power Automate, and create a new flow. This connects Parseur to your Microsoft 365 environment so that every processed email triggers your workflow automatically.
Common Outlook parsing use cases
- Invoice processing: Supplier invoices arrive as PDF attachments in Outlook. Parseur reads the PDF, extracts vendor, amount, and due date, and routes the data to accounting software or an accounts payable sheet. See the invoice processing guide.
- Lead capture: Contact form submissions arrive as Outlook notifications. Parseur pulls name, company, email, and message, then creates a new contact in a CRM or adds a row to a tracking spreadsheet. See the lead email guide.
- Order management: E-commerce order confirmation emails are parsed and routed to a fulfillment sheet in real time.
- Google Alerts monitoring: Google Alerts digest emails forwarded from Outlook are parsed and logged in a centralized research sheet.
- Job alerts: Job alert emails from LinkedIn, Indeed and Google Jobs are parsed into role, company and location rows. See the job alert email guide.
For teams already using Gmail, the same workflow is available. See the Gmail email parser guide.
Free tools for related document types
If you need to convert standalone documents that arrive as Outlook attachments without setting up a full workflow, these free tools handle single files in the browser:
- PDF to Excel converter: extract data from a PDF attachment into a spreadsheet
- Invoice to Excel converter: pull line items, totals, and vendor details from an invoice PDF
If the same attachment type arrives by Outlook regularly, the full Parseur integration processes each one automatically as it lands in your inbox.
