How to Parse EML Emails Into JSON

If you're building something that processes emails (a support tool, a CRM import, a test fixture, an analysis notebook), you need the email as structured data. MIME parsing is fiddly: encodings, multipart bodies, quoted-printable text. This does it for you.

Example output

{
  "subject": "Invoice for January",
  "from": [{ "name": "Ana Silva", "address": "ana@example.com" }],
  "to": [{ "name": "Bob Lee", "address": "bob@example.org" }],
  "cc": [],
  "date": "2024-01-02T16:00:00.000Z",
  "text": "Please find the invoice attached.",
  "html": "<h1>Invoice for January</h1>…",
  "attachments": [{ "name": "invoice.txt", "type": "text/plain", "size": 22 }]
}

• from, to, cc are arrays of { name, address }, even when there's only one.
• text is always filled in. If the email only has HTML, a clean text version is generated.
• html is null for plain-text emails.

How to convert EML to JSON with ZapMorph

1. Open the converter

Go to the EML to JSON converter.

2. Add your EML files

Drop in one or more .eml files.

3. Convert and download

Click Convert to JSON.

What the converter handles for you

Using the output

Python:

import json, glob
emails = [json.load(open(f, encoding="utf-8")) for f in glob.glob("*.json")]
for e in sorted(emails, key=lambda e: e["date"] or ""):
    print(e["date"], e["from"][0]["address"] if e["from"] else "?", e["subject"])

Merge many files into one array with jq: jq -s '.' *.json > all.json

Tips

• Explore the result in the JSON viewer.
• Many emails in one file? Bundle them with EML to MBOX, then use MBOX to JSON for a single array.
• Spreadsheet instead? EML to CSV.

Summary

The EML to JSON converter handles the MIME details and hands you clean, structured email data.