Email Import: Get Full Booking Details That iCal Can't Provide

If you use iCal sync to import Airbnb bookings, you already know the limitation: iCal feeds contain dates and guest names. That is it. No pricing, no fees, no guest count, no confirmation codes. Your revenue tracking, expense analysis, and tax reports all require manual data entry for every single booking.

The Problem With iCal-Only Import

iCal was designed as a calendar format, not a booking format. Airbnb iCal feeds include the guest name in the SUMMARY field and dates — nothing else. No payout amount, no cleaning fee, no platform commission, no guest count. Without this data in your PMS, you end up logging into Airbnb separately to look up payout amounts, or entering them manually after each booking.

How Email Import Works

Every time a guest books through Airbnb, you receive a confirmation email with the full booking details. Email import uses this existing data source. You set up auto-forwarding in Gmail to send these confirmation emails to a unique per-property address that HostMoat provides (e.g., [email protected]). HostMoat parses each forwarded email and extracts guest name, guest count, accommodation revenue (nightly rate times number of nights), host payout amount, cleaning fee, host service fee (Airbnb platform commission), nightly rate, confirmation code, and reservation URL. The host service fee appears as a dedicated Platform Fee field in the booking detail view.

Gmail Auto-Forwarding Setup

In Gmail Settings, go to Forwarding and POP/IMAP and add your HostMoat forwarding address. Gmail sends a verification email to confirm — HostMoat automatically detects this and forwards it to your inbox so you can click the confirmation link. Important: after confirming, hard refresh Gmail (Ctrl+Shift+R or Cmd+Shift+R) — the address will not appear in filter options until you do. Then create a filter: set From to "[email protected]" and Subject to "Reservation confirmed OR Reservation updated", then choose to forward matching messages to your HostMoat address. Tip: find an existing Airbnb confirmation in your inbox, click the three-dot menu and choose "Filter messages like these" to get started faster.

Enriching Existing Bookings

Email import works alongside iCal sync. When a confirmation email arrives, HostMoat matches it to an existing iCal-imported booking by confirmation code or guest name plus date range. The booking is enriched with pricing and details from the email. For reservation update emails, financial data is overwritten with the new values since the update represents the current truth. If no matching booking exists, a new one is created.

What Gets Extracted From Airbnb Emails

• Guest name for identification and CRM.
• Accommodation revenue — nightly rate multiplied by number of nights (what you charged for the stay, before fees).
• Nightly rate and number of nights.
• Host service fee (Airbnb's platform commission, shown as a separate Platform Fee field in the booking).
• Host payout — your net amount after Airbnb deducts its service fee.
• Cleaning fee breakdown.
• Guest count (number of adults).
• Confirmation code (e.g., HMS95SEBXS) for cross-referencing.
• Direct reservation URL to jump to the Airbnb hosting dashboard.

Note: Airbnb intentionally does not include guest email addresses or phone numbers in confirmation emails. These details must be added manually if needed.

Getting Started

Enable email import in Settings for each property. Copy the unique forwarding address and set up Gmail auto-forwarding with a filter for Airbnb confirmation emails. Bookings will start enriching automatically as emails arrive. No changes to your existing iCal sync setup are needed.