Actual Links — Email Linking: Android Developer Guide

This guide covers everything you need to integrate email linking into your Android app: how it works, setup, authentication, retrieval, and references.

How It Works

1. Authenticate — The user connects their email account through your app using IMAP. Credentials are stored on-device only and are never sent to or stored on Actual servers.
2. Extract — The SDK searches the user’s inbox for receipt emails from supported merchants and returns structured purchase data.
3. Enrich (optional) — If Product Intelligence is enabled, extracted line items are matched against the product catalog for UPC, brand, and category.

Supported Email Providers

The SDK supports linking multiple IMAP accounts simultaneously.

Choose Your Integration Approach

Requirements

Installation

1. Add the Maven repository:

Kotlin DSL:

repositories {
    maven { url = uri("https://maven.microblink.com") }
}

repositories {
    maven { url = uri("https://maven.microblink.com") }
}

Groovy:

repositories {
    maven { url "https://maven.microblink.com" }
}

repositories {
    maven { url "https://maven.microblink.com" }
}

2. Add the dependency:

Kotlin DSL:

dependencies {
    implementation(platform("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-bom:1.9.13"))
    implementation("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-digital")
}

dependencies {
    implementation(platform("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-bom:1.9.13"))
    implementation("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-digital")
}

Groovy:

dependencies {
    implementation platform("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-bom:1.9.13")
    implementation "com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-digital"
}

dependencies {
    implementation platform("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-bom:1.9.13")
    implementation "com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-digital"
}

→ Android SDK Repository (GitHub)

License Keys

You need two keys: a license key and a Product Intelligence key.

Option A: Android Manifest

<meta-data
    android:name="com.microblink.LicenseKey"
    android:value="YOUR-LICENSE-KEY"
/>

<meta-data
    android:name="com.microblink.ProductIntelligence"
    android:value="YOUR-PROD-INTEL-KEY"
/>

<meta-data
    android:name="com.microblink.LicenseKey"
    android:value="YOUR-LICENSE-KEY"
/>

<meta-data
    android:name="com.microblink.ProductIntelligence"
    android:value="YOUR-PROD-INTEL-KEY"
/>

Option B: Programmatically

Kotlin:

BlinkReceiptDigitalSdk.licenseKey = "YOUR-LICENSE-KEY"
BlinkReceiptDigitalSdk.productIntelligenceKey = "YOUR-PROD-INTEL-KEY"

BlinkReceiptDigitalSdk.licenseKey = "YOUR-LICENSE-KEY"
BlinkReceiptDigitalSdk.productIntelligenceKey = "YOUR-PROD-INTEL-KEY"

Java:

BlinkReceiptDigitalSdk.licenseKey("YOUR-LICENSE-KEY");
BlinkReceiptDigitalSdk.productIntelligenceKey("YOUR-PROD-INTEL-KEY");

BlinkReceiptDigitalSdk.licenseKey("YOUR-LICENSE-KEY");
BlinkReceiptDigitalSdk.productIntelligenceKey("YOUR-PROD-INTEL-KEY");

Initialize the SDK

Kotlin:

BlinkReceiptDigitalSdk.initialize(this, object : InitializeCallback {
    override fun onComplete() {
        // Ready to use
    }

    override fun onException(throwable: Throwable) {
        // Log exception
    }
})

BlinkReceiptDigitalSdk.initialize(this, object : InitializeCallback {
    override fun onComplete() {
        // Ready to use
    }

    override fun onException(throwable: Throwable) {
        // Log exception
    }
})

Java:

BlinkReceiptDigitalSdk.initialize(this, new InitializeCallback() {
    @Override
    public void onComplete() {
        // Ready to use
    }

    @Override
    public void onException(@NonNull Throwable throwable) {
        // Log exception
    }
});

BlinkReceiptDigitalSdk.initialize(this, new InitializeCallback() {
    @Override
    public void onComplete() {
        // Ready to use
    }

    @Override
    public void onException(@NonNull Throwable throwable) {
        // Log exception
    }
});

IMAP Authentication, Retrieval & Configuration

After installation and initialization, the email linking flow (IMAP authentication, local and remote retrieval, search window configuration, order aggregation, signing out) follows the same concepts across iOS and Android. For detailed code examples:

• IMAP Integration — IMAP authentication for Gmail, Yahoo, and AOL
• Gmail Integration — Gmail-specific setup
• Outlook Integration — Outlook-specific setup
• Tasks — Managing retrieval tasks
• Project Integration — Full project integration guide
• Requirements — Platform and dependency requirements

Remote Retrieval: Server-Side Configuration

If using the recommended On-Device Auth + Server Processing approach, you also need to configure the server side:

→ eReceipts Configuration API (SwaggerHub) → Webhook Documentation

Supported Merchant Emails

The list of merchant email senders that Actual processes is publicly available and updated regularly.

→ Supported Merchant Emails

Emails from senders not on this list are not processed or stored.

Email Receipt Data

Email receipts return the same core fields as paper receipts (merchant, date, total, line items) plus additional fields:

For the full list of returned fields, see the Data Reference →.

Error Handling

Testing Recommendations

• Test each supported provider (Gmail, Yahoo, AOL) end to end
• Test with accounts that have varying volumes of receipt emails
• Test the remote scraping flow including webhook delivery
• Verify cutoff date behavior
• Test account unlinking and re-authentication
• Test aggregation with orders that generate multiple emails

Implementation Timeline

Additional References

• Javadoc — Full API reference

Related

• Actual Links — Email Linking: iOS Developer Guide
• Actual Links — Account Linking: Android Developer Guide