AI Email Recognition

NOTE

This feature is supported from version v1.1.0

This feature is inspired by the Alle project

Features

The email recognition feature automatically analyzes incoming email content and extracts important information. It supports two mutually exclusive modes:

Mode	Extracts	Privacy	Requires
local (default)	Verification codes (auth_code) only	Built-in rules run inside the Worker; mail content is never sent to any AI model	Nothing, zero cost
ai	Verification codes, auth links, service links, subscription links, other links	Mail content is sent to the Workers AI model in your Cloudflare account	Workers AI binding

Types recognized in ai mode:

• Verification Code (auth_code) - OTP, security code, confirmation code, etc.
• Authentication Link (auth_link) - Login, verify, activate, password reset links
• Service Link (service_link) - GitHub, GitLab, deployment notifications and other service-related links
• Subscription Link (subscription_link) - Unsubscribe, manage subscription links
• Other Link (other_link) - Other valuable links

Extraction results are automatically saved to the metadata field in the database, the frontend can directly display extracted verification codes or links, and Telegram pushes and webhook placeholders reuse the same result.

Configuration Variables

Variable Name	Type	Description	Example
ENABLE_AI_EMAIL_EXTRACT	Text/JSON	Whether to enable email recognition (master switch, required by both modes)	true
AI_EXTRACT_MODE	Text	Recognition mode: local uses built-in rules only, ai prefers Workers AI. Defaults to local when unset; any other value logs an error and skips recognition	local
AI_EXTRACT_MODEL	Text	ai mode only. AI model name, choose from models supporting JSON mode	@cf/meta/llama-3.1-8b-instruct-fast

Upgrading from older versions

Older versions automatically used AI recognition whenever a Workers AI binding was configured. Now, when AI_EXTRACT_MODE is unset, local rules are used by default. To keep using AI recognition, explicitly set AI_EXTRACT_MODE = "ai".

The two modes behave as follows:

• local mode never calls AI, even if a Workers AI binding is configured
• ai mode logs an error and skips recognition for that mail when the Workers AI binding is missing or the model call fails; it does not switch to local rules
• In ai mode, an address allowlist miss skips only the Workers AI call; local rules still run to try extracting verification codes

Local Rule Mode (local)

• Extracts verification codes (auth_code) only; links are not extracted
• Zero dependency, zero cost, runs locally inside the Worker; mail content never leaves the Worker
• Reads both the subject and the body, so codes in the subject (e.g. 123456 is your verification code) are extracted too
• Supports common formats in Chinese, English, Japanese and Korean, plus Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Turkish and Hebrew, e.g.:
  • Keyword first: 验证码：123456, Apple ID代码为：724818, 認証コードは 123456 です, 인증번호 [123456], Ваш код: 123456
  • Code first: 123456 是您的验证码, 116352（动态验证码）, G-123456 is your Google verification code, 123456 est votre code de sécurité
  • Words between keyword and code: Your OTP for payment of Rs 5000 is 482913
• Supports codes with separators, spaces, zero-width characters or full-width digits (e.g. 123-456, 8 4 9 2 0 1, K9X-4B2, １２３４５６); separators and letter prefixes such as G- are removed from the result
• Alphanumeric codes must contain a digit; letters-only codes (e.g. QGFDAE) are not recognized, so words like EXPIRED are never taken as codes
• Automatically rejects years and YYYYMMDD dates, numbers longer than 8 digits (e.g. phone numbers), decimals and amounts, times, digits inside URLs and email addresses, and promo / tracking / order / reference / voucher codes
• Without an explicit keyword, a number is only recognized in a verification-looking mail when it is on its own line or right after "use / enter / 输入", so order numbers, hotlines and zip codes are not mistaken for codes
• The subject (up to its first 1000 characters) and body are combined, and only the first 20000 characters of the combined text are analyzed, keeping CPU time predictable for large mails

AI Mode (ai)

We recommend @cf/meta/llama-3.1-8b-instruct-fast as the default model because it supports the JSON Mode used by this feature, and Cloudflare says -fast variants will remain active. The cheaper @cf/meta/llama-3.1-8b-instruct-fp8-fast is not currently listed as a JSON Mode supported model, so it is not recommended for this feature. Cloudflare's newer recommended model @cf/zai-org/glm-4.7-flash is suitable for multilingual scenarios, but confirm structured JSON output support in your account/region before using it for this feature. The previous default model @cf/meta/llama-3.1-8b-instruct was deprecated by Cloudflare on 2026-05-30 and is no longer recommended.

Content Length Limit

To avoid AI model token limits, the maximum email content length for processing is 4000 characters. Email content exceeding this limit will be truncated before AI analysis.

Workers AI Binding

Configure Workers AI binding in wrangler.toml:

AI_EXTRACT_MODE = "ai"

[ai]
binding = "AI"

Or add in Cloudflare Dashboard Worker settings:

• Variable name: AI
• Type: Workers AI

Address Allowlist (Optional)

To control costs and resource usage, you can configure an address allowlist in the Admin console's AI Extract Settings page. The allowlist controls only Workers AI calls, not local rule mode; in ai mode, addresses outside the allowlist still use local rules to try extracting verification codes.

Configuration

• Allowlist Disabled: Workers AI extraction can process all email addresses
• Allowlist Enabled: Workers AI is called only for addresses in the allowlist; addresses outside it skip Workers AI and fall back to local verification-code extraction

Allowlist Format

One address per line, supporting wildcard * to match any characters:

• Exact Match: [email protected] - Only matches this specific email
• Domain Wildcard: *@example.com - Matches all emails under example.com domain
• User Wildcard: admin*@example.com - Matches emails starting with admin
• Wildcard Anywhere: *test*@example.com - Matches emails containing test
• Multiple Wildcards: admin*@*.com - Matches emails starting with admin under any .com domain

Configuration Example

[email protected]
*@mydomain.com
admin*@company.com

This configuration will only call Workers AI for:

• [email protected] (exact match)
• All emails under @mydomain.com (e.g., [email protected], [email protected])
• All emails starting with admin under @company.com (e.g., [email protected], [email protected])