If you end up parsing the mail on the server, this would be a good starting point Php Mbox parser class http://pear.php.net/package-info.php?pacid=150 Theres much more mature code available for perl, however (watch wrap) http://search.cpan.org/author/MARKOV/Mail-Box-2.037/Mail/Box/Mbox.pod http://search.cpan.org/author/MARKOV/Mail-Box-2.037/Mail/Box/Mbox/Message.po d And for qmail-style maildirs, should your mta utilize them http://search.cpan.org/author/MARKOV/Mail-Box-2.037/Mail/Box/Maildir.pod http://search.cpan.org/author/MARKOV/Mail-Box-2.037/Mail/Box/Maildir/Message .pod > I want to create an application that can parse the emails that Amazon or eBay > send me when I have sold an item. I want to capture the despatch note and > delivery address sections and "paste" them into an rtf template . > The problem is, I have no idea where to start. Do I write a VB app that > can I write it > in something like PHP and query the messages on the server.