Accessing email object variables

Release version: Australia

Updated March 12, 2026

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Summary of Accessing Email Object Variables

This guide details how to access various email object variables in an inbound email action script within ServiceNow. Utilizing the global variablesysemail, you can interact with specific components of received emails efficiently, enabling automation and processing based on email content and metadata.

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Key Features

email.to: Comma-separated list of email addresses from the To: and Cc: fields.
email.direct: Comma-separated list of email addresses from the To: field.
email.bodytext: Plain text version of the email's body.
email.bodyhtml: HTML version of the email's body.
email.from: Address of the sender, determined by whether it matches an existing user.
email.subject: Plain text version of the email's subject.
email.recipients and email.recipientsarray: Lists of recipient addresses for processing purposes.
email.importance: Indicates the sender's priority level, such as High or Low.
sysemail: Accesses the email record that triggered the action, allowing reference to various fields.

Key Outcomes

By leveraging these email object variables, ServiceNow customers can automate email processing tasks based on specific criteria, streamline workflows, and enhance the handling of inbound communications. Proper use of these variables ensures compliance with email formatting standards, facilitating efficient data extraction and manipulation.

An inbound email action script contains the email object to access various pieces of an inbound email through variables. You can use the global variable sys_email with inbound email actions.

Table 1. Accessing email objects with variables
Variable	Contents
`email.to`	Contains a comma-separated list of email addresses in the To: and Cc: boxes.
`email.direct`	Contains a comma-separated list of email addresses in the To: box.
`email.copied`	Contains a comma-separated list of email addresses in the Cc: box.
`email.body_text`	Contains the body of the email as a plain text string.
`email.body_html`	Contains the body of the email as an HTML string.
`email.from`	Contains an email address that depends on the following conditions: If the address listed in the email Headers field matches an existing user's Email address, this variable contains the user's email address. If the address listed in the email Headers field does not match an existing user's Email address, this variable contains the address listed in the email Headers field.
`email.from_sys_id`	Contains the Sys ID of the user who sent the email to the instance.
`email.fromAddress`	If system property glide.email.inbound_action.extract_from_header property is set to true, origemail is computed from the headers. The default value is false if the property does not exist.
`email.origemail`	Contains the address of the email sender as listed in the email Headers field.
`email.subject`	Contains the subject of the email as a plain text string.
`email.recipients`	Contains a comma-separated list of recipient addresses as a plain text string, in the To: box.
`email.recipients_array`	Contains the recipient addresses as an array.
`email.content_type`	Contains the MIME content type of the email (for example,`text/plain; charset="us-ascii"` or `text/html; charset="us-ascii"`).
`email.headers`	Contains details about the sender, route, and receiver as a plain text string in the format of the sending email client.
`email.importance`	Contains an indication from the sender about how important a message is. The value can be High, Low, or empty.

Note:

The instance follows RFC 2822 (Internet Message Format), which requires multiple email addresses in a group to be separated by commas, not semicolons. The instance can set the values of the email.to, email.direct, and email.copied variables only if emails addressed to groups follow the expected RFC format.

Inbound email.recipient variables

The recipients variables (email.recipients, email.recipients-array) allow processing of inbound email based on the email recipients. For example, you can create a script to process email based on the array values:

var rarray  = email.recipients_array ; for ( var i  = 0 ; i  < rarray.length ; i ++ ) { var recipient  = rarray [i ] ; // do something with it }

The sys_email variable

This variable lets you access the received sys_email record that triggered the inbound email action. It can be used to reference fields on the email record, such as uid, sys_id, content_type, and so on.