---
title: "Retrieve an inbox"
description: "The lease, the message count and the extensions left. The state a client draws around the list."
url: "https://nextmail.sh/docs/api/temp-mail/get"
area: "API"
category: "Disposable inboxes"
---

# Retrieve an inbox

The lease, the message count and the extensions left. The state a client draws around the list.

`GET /temp-mail/inboxes/{id}`

## GET /temp-mail/inboxes/{id}

The lease, the message count and the extensions left. The state a client draws around the list.

## The inbox token

**shell**

```
export OE=https://api.nextmail.sh
export INBOX="Authorization: Bearer oe_inbox_kQ8v…"
```

Every call below carries the token `POST /temp-mail/inboxes` returned, in the same `Authorization: Bearer` header an API key uses. The address itself authorises nothing, and that separation is the point of the feature rather than a formality: a disposable address is handed to the party you are keeping at arm’s length the moment it is issued.

> The token alone decides which inbox a call reads. The id in the path is not checked against it, so a caller juggling two inboxes has to keep each token with its own id.

## Example

Not the cheap call: `messageCount` is counted by reading every page of the inbox. Poll the message list instead if what you want is mail. That call carries the expiry too.

**curl**

```
curl "$OE/temp-mail/inboxes/tinb_octopus-signup" -H "$INBOX"
```

**Response**

```
{
  "object": "temp_inbox",
  "id": "tinb_octopus-signup",
  "address": "octopus-signup@freemailaddress.com",
  "domain": "freemailaddress.com",
  "createdAt": "2026-09-01T10:00:00.000Z",
  "expiresAt": "2026-09-01T12:00:00.000Z",
  "extensionsLeft": 23,
  "messageCount": 3,
  "messageLimit": 50,
  "lastMessageAt": "2026-09-01T10:31:04.000Z"
}
```

> An expired lease answers 401 `inbox_expired`, and a token this server did not sign answers 404 `resource_not_found`. Destroying an inbox does not end its lease, so its token still reads it.

> While the mailbox that runs the pool cannot be read, this still answers 200, with `messageCount` 0.

## Reference

- [`GET /temp-mail/inboxes/{id}`](https://nextmail.sh/docs/api/reference/temp-mail#get-temp-mail-inboxes-id): full reference