# Process Receiving Attachments

A common use case for Receiving emails is to process attachments.

You can access received email attachments in two ways:

- [View and download from the dashboard](#view-and-download-attachments) to inspect a single email.
- [Use the Attachments API](#process-attachments-programmatically) to process attachments programmatically.

## View and download attachments

You can view and download attachments directly from the dashboard when inspecting a received email.

1. Go to [Emails](https://resend.com/emails) and select the **Receiving** tab.
2. Open the received email that includes the attachment.
3. Click the attachment to download it locally.

For automated processing, use the [Attachments API](#process-attachments-programmatically) instead.

## Process attachments programmatically

:::callout{intent="info"}
Webhooks do not include the actual content of attachments, only their
metadata. You must call the [Attachments
API](/guides/receiving-list-received-email-attachments) to retrieve the
content. This design choice supports large attachments in serverless
environments that have limited request body sizes.
:::

Users can forward airplane tickets, receipts, and expenses to you. Then, you can extract key information from attachments and use that data.

To do this, call the [Attachments API](/guides/receiving-list-received-email-attachments) after receiving the webhook event. That API will return a list of attachments with their metadata and a `download_url` that you can use to download the actual content. To retrieve a single attachment, use [Retrieve Attachment](/guides/receiving-retrieve-received-email-attachment).

Note that the `download_url` is valid for 1 hour. After that, you will need to call the
[Attachments API](/guides/receiving-list-received-email-attachments)
again to get a new `download_url`. You can also check the `expires_at` field on
each attachment to see exactly when it will expire.

Here's how you can implement this:

:::code-group
```ts Next.js theme={"theme":{"light":"github-light","dark":"vesper"}}
// app/api/events/route.ts
import type { NextRequest } from 'next/server';
import { NextResponse } from 'next/server';
import { Resend } from 'resend';

const resend = new Resend('re_xxxxxxxxx');

export const POST = async (request: NextRequest) => {
  const event = await request.json();

  if (event.type === 'email.received') {
    const { data: attachments, error } =
      await resend.emails.receiving.attachments.list({
        emailId: event.data.email_id,
      });

    if (error) {
      return NextResponse.json({ error: error.message }, { status: 500 });
    }

    for (const attachment of attachments.data) {
      // use the download_url to download attachments however you want
      const response = await fetch(attachment.download_url);
      if (!response.ok) {
        console.error(`Failed to download ${attachment.filename}`);
        continue;
      }

      // get the file's contents
      const buffer = Buffer.from(await response.arrayBuffer());

      // process the content (e.g., save to storage, analyze, etc.)
    }

    return NextResponse.json({
      attachmentsProcessed: attachments.data.length,
    });
  }

  return NextResponse.json({});
};
```

```php Laravel theme={"theme":{"light":"github-light","dark":"vesper"}}
// routes/api.php
use Illuminate\Http\JsonResponse;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Http;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Log;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;
use Resend\Laravel\Facades\Resend;

Route::post('/events', function (Request $request) {
  $event = $request->json()->all();

    if ($event['type'] === 'email.received') {
        $attachments = Resend::emails()->receiving->attachments->list(
            emailId: $event['data']['email_id']
        );

        foreach ($attachments->data as $attachment) {
            $response = Http::get($attachment->download_url);

            if ($response->failed()) {
                Log::error("Failed to download {$attachment->filename}");
                continue;
            }

            // get the file's contents
            $contents = $response->body();

            // process the content (e.g., save to storage, analyze, etc.)
        }

        return new JsonResponse($event);
    }

    return new JsonResponse([]);
});
```

```php PHP theme={"theme":{"light":"github-light","dark":"vesper"}}
// index.php
// Include Composer autoload file to load Resend SDK classes...
require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

header('Content-Type: application/json');

if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] !== 'POST') {
    http_response_code(405);
    echo json_encode(['error' => 'Method Not Allowed']);
    exit;
}

$body = file_get_contents('php://input');
$event = json_decode($body, true);

if (json_last_error() !== JSON_ERROR_NONE) {
    http_response_code(400);
    echo json_encode(['error' => 'Invalid JSON']);
    exit;
}

if ($event['type'] === 'email.received') {
    $resend = Resend::client('re_xxxxxxxxx');

    $attachments = $resend->emails->receiving->attachments->list(
        emailId: $event['data']['email_id']
    );

    foreach ($attachments->data as $attachment) {
        $ch = curl_init($attachment->download_url);
        curl_setopt_array($ch, [
            CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
            CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION => true,
        ]);

        $contents = curl_exec($ch);
        $statusCode = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
        $ch = null;

        if ($contents === false || $statusCode !== 200) {
            error_log("Failed to download {$attachment->filename}");
            continue;
        }

        // process the content (e.g., save to disk, analyze, etc.)
    }

    echo json_encode($event);
    exit;
}

echo json_encode([]);
```

```rust Rust theme={"theme":{"light":"github-light","dark":"vesper"}}
use axum::{
    extract::State,
    response::{IntoResponse, Json, Response},
};
use resend_rs::{json, list_opts::ListOptions, Resend};
use serde::Serialize;
use std::sync::Arc;

struct AppState {
    resend: Resend,
}

#[derive(Serialize)]
struct Empty {}

async fn example(
    State(state): State<Arc<AppState>>,
    Json(event): Json<resend_rs::events::EmailEvent>,
) -> Response {
    if matches!(
        event.r#type,
        resend_rs::events::EmailEventType::EmailReceived
    ) {
        let attachments = state
            .resend
            .receiving
            .list_attachments(&event.data.email_id, ListOptions::default())
            .await
            .unwrap();

        for attachment in &attachments.data {
            // use the download_url to download attachments however you want
            let response = reqwest::get(&attachment.download_url).await;

            if response.is_err() {
                dbg!(format!(
                    "Failed to download {}",
                    attachment.filename.clone().unwrap()
                ));
            }

            // get the file's contents
            let _buffer = response.unwrap().bytes().await.unwrap();

            // process the content (e.g., save to storage, analyze, etc.)
        }

        Json(json!({
            "attachmentsProcessed": attachments.len()
        }))
        .into_response()
    } else {
        Json(Empty {}).into_response()
    }
}
```
:::

Once you process attachments, you may want to forward the email to another address. Learn more about [forwarding emails](/guides/learn-dashboard-receiving-forward-emails).

## Related pages

- [Receiving Emails](./learn-dashboard-receiving-introduction.md)
- [Managing Emails](./learn-dashboard-receiving-manage-emails.md)
- [Custom Receiving Domains](./learn-dashboard-receiving-custom-domains.md)
- [Create a receiving Webhook](./learn-dashboard-receiving-create-receiving-webhook.md)
- [Get Email Content](./learn-dashboard-receiving-get-email-content.md)
- [Forward Received Emails](./learn-dashboard-receiving-forward-emails.md)
- [Reply to Receiving Emails](./learn-dashboard-receiving-reply-to-emails.md)

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