---
schema_version: "1"
id: 3710856a948f95ccd6ff4ef61dede73a22dc8426b0739f879b3b8162de38c803
title: What Are Email Services?
collection: admin
version: current
locale: en-us
portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/admin/current/en-us/platform/264-0-0/code_email_services_overview.md
canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.code_email_services_overview.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5
source_site: help.salesforce.com
content_type: documentation
content_hash: ae8541be40f5d0422bf7f194b1a62c020ef1a9ef9e44604a91ddc8618e035f92
description: Email services are automated processes that use Apex classes to process inbound email.
products:
  - Salesforce Platform
release: "264"
---
# What Are Email Services?

Email services are automated processes that use Apex classes to process inbound email.

### Required Editions

<table class="slds-table slds-table_bordered slds-max-medium-table_stacked slds-m-bottom_small edition">
      <colgroup>
        <col>
      </colgroup>
      <tbody>
        <tr class="">
          <td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;">Available in: Salesforce Classic (<a href="https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=xcloud.overview_edition_lex_only.htm&amp;type=5&amp;language=en_US" target="_blank">not available in
              all orgs</a>) and Lightning Experience</td>

        </tr>
        <tr class="">
          <td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;">
            <p>Available in: <strong>Enterprise</strong>, <strong>Performance</strong>,
              <strong>Unlimited</strong>, and <strong>Developer</strong> Editions
            </p>
            <p style="margin-bottom:0;">Use of email services
              in installed AppExchange packages also available in:
              <strong>Essentials</strong>, <strong>Group</strong>, and <strong>Professional</strong>
              Editions
            </p>
          </td>

        </tr>
      </tbody>
    </table> <table class="slds-table slds-table_bordered slds-max-medium-table_stacked slds-m-bottom_small permission">
      <colgroup>
        <col style="width:50%">
        <col style="width:50%">
      </colgroup>
      <thead class="slds-text-title_caps ">
        <tr class="">
          <th scope="colgroup" class="slds-cell-wrap" colspan="2" style="text-align:center;vertical-align:top;" id="d38706e85">User Permissions
            Needed</th>
        </tr>
      </thead>
      <tbody>
        <tr class="">
          <td data-label="User Permissions Needed" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d38706e85 ">To configure Apex email services and email service addresses:</td>

          <td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d38706e85 ">Customize Application</td>

        </tr>
        <tr class="">
          <td data-label="User Permissions Needed" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d38706e85 ">To create Apex classes:</td>

          <td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d38706e85 ">Author Apex</td>

        </tr>
      </tbody>
    </table>

You can associate each email service with one or more Salesforce-generated email addresses to which users can send messages for processing. To give multiple users access to a single email service, you can:

- Associate multiple Salesforce-generated email addresses with the email service and allocate those addresses to users.
- Associate a single Salesforce-generated email address with the email service, and write an Apex class that executes according to the user accessing the email service. For example, you can write an Apex class that identifies the user based on the user's email address and creates records on behalf of that user.

To use email services, from Setup, enter Email Services in the Quick Find box, then select **Email Services**.

- Click **New Email Service** to define a new email service.
- Select an existing email service to view its configuration, activate or deactivate it, and view or specify addresses for that email service.
- Click **Edit** to make changes to an existing email service.
- Click **Delete** to delete an email service.
    
    ![Note](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-platform-extend_code-264-0-0-production-enus/789bc523-706b-4ae4-8fe9-be6322e38b6b/images/icon_note.png)
    
    Note Before deleting email services, you must delete all associated email service addresses.

When defining email services, note the following:

- An email service only processes messages it receives at one of its addresses.
- Salesforce limits the total number of messages that all email services combined, including On-Demand Email-to-Case, can process daily. Messages that exceed this limit are bounced, discarded, or queued for processing the next day, depending on how you configure the failure response settings for each email service. Salesforce calculates the limit by multiplying the number of user licenses by 1,000; maximum 1,000,000. For example, if you have 10 licenses, your org can process up to 10,000 email messages a day.
- Email service addresses that you create in your sandbox cannot be copied to your production org.
- For each email service, you can tell Salesforce to send error email messages to a specified address instead of the sender's email address.
- Email services reject email messages and notify the sender if the email (combined body text, body HTML, and attachments) exceeds approximately 25 MB (varies depending on language and character set).

#### See Also

- [Define Email Service Addresses](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.code_email_service_address.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Add an inbound email address for an email service.")
- [Define Email Services](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.code_email_services_editing.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Set up an email service to handle incoming email, and configure the service to process messages according to your users' needs.")
- [The InboundEmail Object](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.code_inbound_email.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "For every email the Apex email service domain receives, Salesforce creates a separate InboundEmail object that contains the contents and attachments of that email. You can use Apex classes that implement the Messaging.InboundEmailHandler interface to handle an inbound email message. Using the handleInboundEmail method in that class, you can access an InboundEmail object to retrieve the contents, headers, and attachments of inbound email messages, as well as perform many functions.")