# Capture documents sent to an email address

Set up an email capture job in Catalog Manager so anything mailed to a dedicated address — vendor invoices, copier scans, e-faxes, partner paperwork — becomes a Content Central document automatically.

Product: content-central · Versions: 7.x · Audience: system-administrator · Time: About 30 minutes · Last verified: 2026-08-31

Canonical: https://help.ademero.com/content-central/capture/capture-documents-sent-to-email

**By the end of this guide, anything mailed to a dedicated address — `invoices@yourcompany.com`, `scans@yourcompany.com` — will flow into Content Central automatically, and you'll have proven it with a live test message.**

Email capture is configured in **Catalog Manager**, a Windows application on the Content Central server — not in the web admin. Each capture job watches one mailbox and turns what arrives into documents.

> **WARNING:** Always use a mailbox created just for capture. Depending on the settings below, Content Central may delete every message in the mailbox after capturing it — never point a capture job at a personal or shared inbox.

## Step 1: Create the capture job

1. On the Content Central server, open **Catalog Manager**.

2. Select your catalog in the list and click **Modify...**. In the **Modify Catalog** dialog, open the **Capture** tab.
   
   **What you should see:** a **Capture Jobs** list with columns **Name**, **Document Type**, **Source**, **Descriptor**, and **Enabled**.

*[Screenshot: Every capture job for this catalog in one list; Add... starts a new one, Edit... reopens an existing job.]*

3. Click **Add...** to open the **Capture Job Details** dialog. On the **General** tab, enter a **Name** (like `AP Invoices - Email`) and a short **Description**.

4. Choose the **Document Type** the incoming documents belong to. This decides which fields you can fill from the email and where the documents are routed — and changing it later may change settings on the other tabs.

5. Set **Capture Source** to `Email`.
   
   **What you should see:** help text confirming an email address will be monitored and attached files converted to documents. A single document can't span multiple emails.

6. Pick a **Priority** (`High`, `Medium`, or `Low`) and a **Processing Type**: `Image` for scans and PDFs that should go through OCR, `Electronic` to keep files exactly as sent. Leave **Capture Job Enabled** checked.

*[Screenshot: Capture Source set to Email, with the dialog's own reminder: attached files become documents, and a single document can't span multiple emails.]*

## Step 2: Connect the mailbox

Open the **Details** tab. It has two sections: **E-mail Server Settings** and **E-mail Field Settings**.

1. Choose a **Server Type:** — `POP3`, `IMAP`, or `OAuth2`.

2. For `POP3` or `IMAP`, fill in **Hostname:**, **Username:**, and **Password:** from your mail administrator, and pick an **Encryption:** option. The **Port:** fills in automatically to match. Enable the POP3-only **Log on using Secure Password Authentication** checkbox only if your mail server requires it.
   
   | Server Type | Encryption `None` | Encryption `SSL/TLS` |
   |---|---|---|
   | POP3 | `110` | `995` |
   | IMAP | `143` | `993` |

3. For `OAuth2`, pick a **Provider:** — `Azure` for Microsoft 365 (**Directory Id:**, **Application Id:**, **Client Secret:**, **Username:**) or `Gmail` (**Client Id:**, **Client Secret:**, **Username:**). Your mail administrator creates these app credentials — they aren't the mailbox password. Each provider also has a **Delete message after capturing:** setting.

4. Click **Test Server Settings**.
   
   **What you should see:** `Test Succeeded.` plus a count of messages in the mailbox. A Gmail job can't be saved until this test passes.

> **WARNING:** A POP3 job downloads and deletes **every** message in the mailbox — Content Central makes you confirm `I understand all messages will be deleted.` before saving. This is why the mailbox must be dedicated.

> **NOTE:** IMAP jobs — and OAuth2 jobs with **Delete message after capturing:** unchecked — capture only *unread* messages, then mark them read and leave them in place. If someone opens a message before capture gets to it, that message is skipped.

> **NOTE:** There's no polling interval to set on this screen. The Capture Service on the server checks enabled jobs on its own schedule, so new mail is normally picked up within a few minutes.

*[Screenshot: Everything Step 2 fills in — Server Type, Hostname, credentials, Port, Encryption — plus the Test Server Settings button that must pass before you rely on the job.]*

## Step 3: Choose what gets captured

By default, each file attachment becomes a document and the message body itself is not captured. Two checkboxes change that — they're mutually exclusive, and checking either one switches the job's **Processing Type** to `Electronic`:

- **Capture e-mail message itself instead of attachments** — stores the message as a `.eml` file named from its date and time.
- **Capture e-mail and attachments** — stores the message *and* every attachment.

> **NOTE:** Inline images — signature logos, embedded pictures — are skipped automatically, so they never become junk documents. ZIP attachments are extracted into individual files unless the Processing Type is `Electronic`. Attachments from one email always stay together as that email's documents.

Under **E-mail Field Settings**, map email metadata — **From**, **To**, **Cc**, **Date/Time**, **Subject**, **Body**, and more — straight into the document type's fields, so documents arrive pre-coded. The **...** button beside a field opens an advanced mapping dialog for extracting part of a value (an invoice number from the subject line, say). **Preferred body format:** chooses `HTML` or `Plain Text` for a mapped **Body** field.

> **NOTE:** If you capture both the message and its attachments, map the **Content Type** field — it's filled with `Message` or `Attachment` so users can tell the resulting documents apart.

## Step 4: Route the documents

1. Captured documents that still need metadata land in the **Coding Queue** for the document type you chose in Step 1, where a person finishes coding them.

2. If your field mappings fill everything needed, open the **Descriptor** tab and check **Bypass Coding Queue and send documents directly to Catalog** to file documents with no human touch.

3. Save and close the dialogs. The new job appears in the **Capture Jobs** list with **Enabled** checked.

Once captured, these documents behave like any other capture: they go through the same processing pipeline and trigger the document type's workflow rules normally.

## Step 5: Prove it works

1. Send one email with a single PDF attachment to the capture address.

2. Within a few minutes, open the **Coding Queue** for that document type in the web client (or the catalog itself, if you bypassed coding).
   
   **What you should see:** the attachment as a new document, with any mapped email fields already filled in.

3. For a second confirmation, open the **Event Viewer** in the web client — it's in the menu behind your user avatar — and filter to capture events in that time window. The captured document appears as its own row.

## Great uses for a capture address

| Address | Who mails it |
| --- | --- |
| `invoices@...` | Vendors email invoices straight into your AP coding queue — no scanning, no forwarding. |
| `scans@...` | Office copiers with scan-to-email send paper documents directly into Content Central. |
| `faxes@...` | An e-fax service that delivers faxes as email attachments files them automatically. |
| `documents@...` | External partners submit paperwork without needing Content Central accounts. |

The same idea powers integrations: anything that can send an email can feed Content Central, which is why the integration guides build on this setup.

## Still stuck?

If the test email never appears, send support this compact evidence set:

- [ ] The capture job's **Name** and a screenshot of the **Capture Jobs** list showing it **Enabled**
- [ ] The test email's sender address, subject, and exact send time
- [ ] Whether **Test Server Settings** passes, and the message count it reports
- [ ] The **Server Type**, and whether messages are piling up unread (IMAP) or not disappearing (POP3)
- [ ] Any Content Central entries in the Windows **Event Viewer** on the server around the send time

## What's next

- [Hot-folder documents aren't reaching the Coding Queue](https://help.ademero.com/content-central/capture/hot-folder-documents-arent-processing)
- [Connect another system to Content Central](https://help.ademero.com/content-central/integrations/connect-another-system-to-content-central)