Email MCP Server

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server providing comprehensive email capabilities via IMAP and SMTP.

Enables AI assistants to read, search, send, manage, schedule, and analyze emails across multiple accounts. Exposes 47 tools, 7 prompts, and 6 resources over the MCP protocol with OAuth2 support (experimental), email scheduling, calendar extraction, analytics, provider-aware label management, real-time IMAP IDLE watcher with AI-powered triage, customizable presets and static rules, and a guided setup wizard.

Highlights

Feature	email-mcp	Typical MCP email
Multi-account	✅	❌
Send / reply / forward	✅	✅
Drafts & templates	✅	❌
Labels & bulk ops	✅ provider-aware	❌
Schedule future emails	✅	❌
Real-time IMAP IDLE watcher	✅	❌
AI triage with presets	✅	❌
Desktop & webhook alerts	✅	❌
Calendar (ICS) extraction	✅	❌
Email analytics	✅	❌
OAuth2 (Gmail / M365)	✅ experimental	❌
Guided setup wizard	✅ auto-detect	❌

Security

All connections use TLS/STARTTLS encryption
Passwords are never logged; audit trail records operations without credentials
Token-bucket rate limiter prevents abuse (configurable per account)
OAuth2 XOAUTH2 authentication for Gmail and Microsoft 365 (experimental)
Attachment downloads capped at 5 MB with base64 encoding

Background

Most MCP email implementations provide only basic read/send. This server aims to be a full-featured email client for AI assistants, covering the entire lifecycle: reading, composing, managing, scheduling, and analyzing email — all from a single MCP server.

Key design decisions:

XDG-compliant config — TOML at ~/.config/email-mcp/config.toml
Multi-account — Operate across multiple IMAP/SMTP accounts simultaneously
Layered services — Business logic is decoupled from MCP wiring for testability
Provider auto-detection — Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, iCloud, Fastmail, ProtonMail, Zoho, GMX

Install

Requires Node.js ≥ 22.

# Run directly (no install needed)
npx @codefuturist/email-mcp setup
# or
pnpm dlx @codefuturist/email-mcp setup

# Or install globally
npm install -g @codefuturist/email-mcp
# or
pnpm add -g @codefuturist/email-mcp

Usage

Setup

# Add an email account interactively (recommended)
email-mcp account add

# Or use the legacy alias
email-mcp setup

# Or create a template config manually
email-mcp config init

The setup wizard auto-detects server settings, tests connections, saves config, and outputs the MCP client config snippet.

Test Connections

email-mcp test            # all accounts
email-mcp test personal   # specific account

Configure Your MCP Client

Recommended — use the guided installer (auto-detects Claude Desktop, VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf):

email-mcp install

Or add manually using the snippets below.

Claude Desktop

Edit ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "email": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@codefuturist/email-mcp", "stdio"]
    }
  }
}

VS Code (GitHub Copilot)

Add to .vscode/mcp.json in your workspace, or User settings.json under the mcp key:

{
  "servers": {
    "email": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@codefuturist/email-mcp", "stdio"]
    }
  }
}

Cursor

Edit ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "email": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@codefuturist/email-mcp", "stdio"]
    }
  }
}

Windsurf

Edit ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "email": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@codefuturist/email-mcp", "stdio"]
    }
  }
}

Single-account via environment variables (no config file needed)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "email": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@codefuturist/email-mcp", "stdio"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_EMAIL_ADDRESS": "you@gmail.com",
        "MCP_EMAIL_PASSWORD": "your-app-password",
        "MCP_EMAIL_IMAP_HOST": "imap.gmail.com",
        "MCP_EMAIL_SMTP_HOST": "smtp.gmail.com"
      }
    }
  }
}

CLI Commands

email-mcp [command]

Commands:
  stdio                     Run as MCP server over stdio (default)
  account list              List all configured accounts
  account add               Add a new email account interactively
  account edit [name]       Edit an existing account
  account delete [name]     Remove an account
  setup                     Alias for 'account add'
  test                      Test connections for all or a specific account
  install                   Register email-mcp with MCP clients interactively
  install status            Show registration status for detected clients
  install remove            Unregister email-mcp from MCP clients
  config show               Show config (passwords masked)
  config edit               Edit global settings (rate limit, read-only)
  config path               Print config file path
  config init               Create template config
  scheduler check           Process pending scheduled emails
  scheduler list            Show all scheduled emails
  scheduler install         Install OS-level scheduler (launchd/crontab)
  scheduler uninstall       Remove OS-level scheduler
  scheduler status          Show scheduler installation status
  help                      Show help

Configuration

Located at $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/email-mcp/config.toml (default: ~/.config/email-mcp/config.toml).

[settings]
rate_limit = 10  # max emails per minute per account

[[accounts]]
name = "personal"
email = "you@gmail.com"
full_name = "Your Name"
password = "your-app-password"

[accounts.imap]
host = "imap.gmail.com"
port = 993
tls = true

[accounts.smtp]
host = "smtp.gmail.com"
port = 465
tls = true
starttls = false
verify_ssl = true

[accounts.smtp.pool]
enabled = true
max_connections = 1
max_messages = 100

OAuth2 (experimental)

Note: OAuth2 support is experimental. Token refresh and provider-specific flows may require additional testing in your environment.

[[accounts]]
name = "work"
email = "you@company.com"
full_name = "Your Name"

[accounts.oauth2]
provider = "google"            # or "microsoft"
client_id = "your-client-id"
client_secret = "your-client-secret"
refresh_token = "your-refresh-token"

[accounts.imap]
host = "imap.gmail.com"
port = 993
tls = true

[accounts.smtp]
host = "smtp.gmail.com"
port = 465
tls = true

[accounts.smtp.pool]
enabled = true
max_connections = 1
max_messages = 100

Environment Variables

For single-account setups (overrides config file):

Variable	Default	Description
`MCP_EMAIL_ADDRESS`	required	Email address
`MCP_EMAIL_PASSWORD`	required	Password or app password
`MCP_EMAIL_IMAP_HOST`	required	IMAP server hostname
`MCP_EMAIL_SMTP_HOST`	required	SMTP server hostname
`MCP_EMAIL_ACCOUNT_NAME`	`default`	Account name
`MCP_EMAIL_FULL_NAME`	—	Display name
`MCP_EMAIL_USERNAME`	email	Login username
`MCP_EMAIL_IMAP_PORT`	`993`	IMAP port
`MCP_EMAIL_IMAP_TLS`	`true`	IMAP TLS
`MCP_EMAIL_SMTP_PORT`	`465`	SMTP port
`MCP_EMAIL_SMTP_TLS`	`true`	SMTP TLS
`MCP_EMAIL_SMTP_STARTTLS`	`false`	SMTP STARTTLS
`MCP_EMAIL_SMTP_VERIFY_SSL`	`true`	Verify SSL certificates
`MCP_EMAIL_SMTP_POOL_ENABLED`	`true`	Enable SMTP transport pooling
`MCP_EMAIL_SMTP_POOL_MAX_CONNECTIONS`	`1`	Max pooled SMTP connections
`MCP_EMAIL_SMTP_POOL_MAX_MESSAGES`	`100`	Max messages per pooled connection
`MCP_EMAIL_RATE_LIMIT`	`10`	Max sends per minute

Email Scheduling

The scheduler enables future email delivery with a layered architecture:

MCP auto-check — Processes the queue on server startup and every 60 seconds
CLI — email-mcp scheduler check for manual or cron-based processing
OS-level — email-mcp scheduler install sets up launchd (macOS) or crontab (Linux)

Scheduled emails are stored as JSON files in ~/.local/state/email-mcp/scheduled/ with status-based locking and up to 3 retry attempts.

Real-time Watcher & AI Hooks

The IMAP IDLE watcher monitors configured mailboxes in real-time using persistent IDLE connections (separate from tool connections). When new emails arrive:

Static rules — Pattern-match on from/to/subject → apply labels, flag, or mark read instantly (no AI)
AI triage — Remaining emails are analyzed via MCP sampling with a customizable preset prompt
Notify mode — Falls back to logging if AI triage is disabled

Configure in config.toml:

[settings.watcher]
enabled = true
folders = ["INBOX"]
idle_timeout = 1740     # 29 minutes (IMAP spec max is 30)

[settings.hooks]
on_new_email = "triage" # "triage" | "notify" | "none"
preset = "inbox-zero"   # "inbox-zero" | "gtd" | "priority-focus" | "notification-only" | "custom"
auto_label = true       # apply AI-suggested labels
auto_flag = true        # flag urgent emails
batch_delay = 5         # seconds to batch before triage

# User context — appended to preset's AI prompt
custom_instructions = """
I'm a software engineer. Emails from @mycompany.com are always high priority.
Newsletters I read: TL;DR, Hacker Newsletter.
"""

# Static rules — run BEFORE AI, skip AI if matched
[[settings.hooks.rules]]
name = "GitHub Notifications"
match = { from = "*@github.com" }
actions = { labels = ["Dev"], mark_read = true }

[[settings.hooks.rules]]
name = "Newsletter Archive"
match = { from = "*@substack.com|*@buttondown.email" }
actions = { labels = ["Newsletter"] }

[[settings.hooks.rules]]
name = "VIP Contacts"
match = { from = "ceo@company.com|cto@company.com" }
actions = { flag = true, labels = ["VIP"] }

Presets

Preset	Focus	Suggested Labels
`inbox-zero`	Aggressive categorization + archiving	Newsletter, Notification, Updates, Finance, Social, Promo
`gtd`	Getting Things Done contexts	@Action, @Waiting, @Reference, @Someday, @Delegated
`priority-focus`	Simple priority classification (default)	(none — just priority + flag)
`notification-only`	No AI triage, just log	(none)
`custom`	User defines full system prompt	User-defined

Static Rules

Static rules use glob-style patterns (*@github.com) with | as OR separator (*@github.com|*@gitlab.com). All conditions within a match are AND'd. First matching rule wins.

Available actions: labels (string array), flag (boolean), mark_read (boolean), alert (boolean — forces desktop notification).

Alerts

Urgency-based multi-channel notification routing — grab attention for important emails even when you're not looking at the chat. All channels are opt-in and disabled by default.

Priority	Desktop	Sound	MCP Log Level	Webhook
`urgent`	✅ Banner	🔊 Alert	`alert`	✅
`high`	✅ Banner	🔇 Silent	`warning`	✅
`normal`	❌	❌	`info`	❌
`low`	❌	❌	`debug`	❌

[settings.hooks.alerts]
desktop = true              # OS-level notifications (macOS/Linux/Windows)
sound = true                # play sound for urgent emails
urgency_threshold = "high"  # minimum priority to trigger desktop alert
webhook_url = "https://ntfy.sh/my-email-alerts"  # optional: Slack, Discord, ntfy.sh, etc.
webhook_events = ["urgent", "high"]

Supported platforms: macOS (Notification Center via osascript), Linux (notify-send), Windows (PowerShell toast). Zero npm dependencies — uses native OS commands.

Notification setup by platform:

macOS

Desktop notifications use osascript (built-in). The terminal app running the MCP server needs notification permission:

Open System Settings → Notifications & Focus
Find your terminal app (Terminal, iTerm2, VS Code, Cursor, etc.)
Enable Allow Notifications and choose Banners or Alerts
Ensure Focus / Do Not Disturb is not blocking notifications

Use check_notification_setup to diagnose and test_notification to verify.

Linux

Requires notify-send from libnotify. For sound alerts, paplay is also needed:

# Ubuntu / Debian
sudo apt install libnotify-bin pulseaudio-utils

# Fedora
sudo dnf install libnotify pulseaudio-utils

# Arch
sudo pacman -S libnotify

Desktop notifications require a running display server (X11/Wayland) — they will not work in headless/SSH sessions.

Windows

Uses PowerShell toast notifications (built-in):

Open Settings → System → Notifications
Ensure Notifications is turned on
Set Focus Assist to allow notifications
If using Windows Terminal, ensure its notifications are enabled

AI-configurable: The AI can check, test, and configure notifications at runtime:

check_notification_setup — diagnose platform support and show setup instructions
test_notification — send a test notification to verify everything works
configure_alerts — enable/disable desktop, sound, threshold, webhook (with optional persist to config file)

Webhook payload:

{
  "event": "email.urgent",
  "account": "work",
  "sender": { "name": "John CEO", "address": "ceo@company.com" },
  "subject": "Q4 Review Due Today",
  "priority": "urgent",
  "labels": ["VIP"],
  "rule": "VIP Contacts",
  "timestamp": "2026-02-18T11:30:00Z"
}

Static rules can force desktop notifications with alert = true, regardless of urgency threshold:

[[settings.hooks.rules]]
name = "VIP Contacts"
match = { from = "ceo@company.com" }
actions = { flag = true, alert = true, labels = ["VIP"] }

Features:

Auto-reconnect — Exponential backoff (1s → 60s) on connection failures
Batching — Groups arrivals within a configurable delay to reduce AI calls
Rate limiting — Max 10 sampling calls per minute
Graceful degradation — Falls back to notify mode if client doesn't support sampling
Resource subscriptions — Pushes notifications/resources/updated for unread counts

API

Tools (47)

Read (14)

Tool	Description
`list_accounts`	List all configured email accounts
`list_mailboxes`	List folders with unread counts and special-use flags
`list_emails`	Paginated email listing with date, sender, subject, and flag filters
`get_email`	Read full email content with attachment metadata
`get_emails`	Fetch full content of multiple emails in a single call (max 20)
`get_email_status`	Get read/flag/label state of an email without fetching the body
`search_emails`	Search by keyword across subject, sender, and body
`download_attachment`	Download an email attachment by filename
`find_email_folder`	Discover the real folder(s) an email resides in (resolves virtual folders)
`extract_contacts`	Extract unique contacts from recent email headers
`get_thread`	Reconstruct a conversation thread via References/In-Reply-To
`list_templates`	List available email templates
`get_email_stats`	Email analytics — volume, top senders, daily trends
`check_health`	Connection health, latency, quota, and IMAP capabilities

Write (9)

Tool	Description
`send_email`	Send a new email (plain text or HTML, CC/BCC)
`reply_email`	Reply with proper threading (In-Reply-To, References)
`forward_email`	Forward with original content quoted
`save_draft`	Save an email draft to the Drafts folder
`send_draft`	Send an existing draft and remove from Drafts
`apply_template`	Apply a template with variable substitution
`schedule_email`	Schedule an email for future delivery
`list_scheduled`	List scheduled emails by status
`cancel_scheduled`	Cancel a pending scheduled email

Manage (7)

Tool	Description
`move_email`	Move email between folders
`delete_email`	Move to Trash or permanently delete
`mark_email`	Mark as read/unread, flag/unflag
`bulk_action`	Batch operation on up to 100 emails
`create_mailbox`	Create a new mailbox folder
`rename_mailbox`	Rename an existing mailbox folder
`delete_mailbox`	Permanently delete a mailbox and contents

Labels (5)

Tool	Description
`list_labels`	Discover available labels (auto-detects provider strategy)
`add_label`	Add a label to an email (ProtonMail folders, Gmail X-GM-LABELS, or IMAP keywords)
`remove_label`	Remove a label from an email
`create_label`	Create a new label
`delete_label`	Delete a label

Watcher & Alerts (6)

Tool	Description
`get_watcher_status`	Show IMAP IDLE connections, folders being monitored, and last-seen UIDs
`list_presets`	List available AI triage presets with descriptions and suggested labels
`get_hooks_config`	Show current hooks configuration — preset, rules, and custom instructions
`configure_alerts`	Update alert/notification settings at runtime
`check_notification_setup`	Diagnose desktop notification support and provide setup instructions
`test_notification`	Send a test notification to verify OS permissions are configured

Calendar & Reminders (6)

Tool	Description
`extract_calendar`	Extract ICS/iCalendar events from an email
`analyze_email_for_scheduling`	Analyze an email to detect events and reminder-worthy content
`add_to_calendar`	Add an email event to the local calendar (macOS/Linux)
`create_reminder`	Create a reminder in macOS Reminders.app from an email
`list_calendars`	List all available local calendars
`check_calendar_permissions`	Check whether the local calendar is accessible

Prompts (7)

Prompt	Description
`triage_inbox`	Categorize and prioritize unread emails with suggested actions
`summarize_thread`	Summarize an email conversation thread
`compose_reply`	Draft a context-aware reply to an email
`draft_from_context`	Compose a new email from provided context and instructions
`extract_action_items`	Extract actionable tasks from email threads
`summarize_meetings`	Summarize upcoming calendar events from emails
`cleanup_inbox`	Suggest emails to archive, delete, or unsubscribe from

Resources (6)

Resource	URI	Description
Accounts	`email://accounts`	List of configured accounts
Mailboxes	`email://{account}/mailboxes`	Folder tree for an account
Unread	`email://{account}/unread`	Unread email summary
Templates	`email://templates`	Available email templates
Stats	`email://{account}/stats`	Email statistics snapshot
Scheduled	`email://scheduled`	Pending scheduled emails

Provider Auto-Detection

Provider	Domains
Gmail	gmail.com
Outlook / Hotmail	outlook.com, hotmail.com, live.com
Yahoo Mail	yahoo.com, ymail.com
iCloud	icloud.com, me.com, mac.com
Fastmail	fastmail.com
ProtonMail Bridge	proton.me, protonmail.com
Zoho Mail	zoho.com
GMX	gmx.com, gmx.de, gmx.net

Architecture

src/
├── main.ts                — Entry point and subcommand routing
├── server.ts              — MCP server factory
├── logging.ts             — MCP protocol logging bridge
├── cli/                   — Interactive CLI commands
│   ├── account-commands.ts — Account CRUD (list, add, edit, delete)
│   ├── setup.ts           — Legacy setup alias → account add
│   ├── test.ts            — Connection tester
│   ├── config-commands.ts — Config management (show, edit, path, init)
│   ├── install-commands.ts — MCP client registration (install, status, remove)
│   ├── providers.ts       — Provider auto-detection + OAuth2 endpoints (experimental)
│   └── scheduler.ts       — Scheduler CLI
├── config/                — Configuration layer
│   ├── xdg.ts             — XDG Base Directory paths
│   ├── schema.ts          — Zod validation schemas
│   └── loader.ts          — Config loader (TOML + env vars)
├── connections/
│   └── manager.ts         — Lazy persistent IMAP/SMTP with OAuth2 (experimental)
├── services/              — Business logic
│   ├── imap.service.ts    — IMAP operations
│   ├── label-strategy.ts  — Provider-aware label strategy (ProtonMail/Gmail/IMAP keywords)
│   ├── smtp.service.ts    — SMTP operations
│   ├── template.service.ts — Email template engine
│   ├── oauth.service.ts   — OAuth2 token management (experimental)
│   ├── calendar.service.ts — ICS/iCalendar parsing
│   ├── scheduler.service.ts — Email scheduling queue
│   ├── watcher.service.ts — IMAP IDLE real-time watcher with auto-reconnect
│   ├── hooks.service.ts   — AI triage via MCP sampling + static rules + auto-labeling/flagging
│   ├── notifier.service.ts — Multi-channel notification dispatcher (desktop/sound/webhook)
│   ├── presets.ts         — Built-in hook presets (inbox-zero, gtd, priority-focus, etc.)
│   └── event-bus.ts       — Typed EventEmitter for internal email events
├── tools/                 — MCP tool definitions (42)
├── prompts/               — MCP prompt definitions (7)
├── resources/             — MCP resource definitions (6)
├── safety/                — Audit trail and rate limiter
└── types/                 — Shared TypeScript types

Maintainers

@codefuturist

Contributing

PRs accepted. Please conform to the standard-readme specification when editing this README.

# Development workflow
pnpm install
pnpm typecheck   # type check
pnpm check       # lint and format
pnpm build       # build
pnpm start       # run

License

LGPL-3.0-or-later

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 40 Commits
.github		.github
docs		docs
src		src
.gitignore		.gitignore
.nvmrc		.nvmrc
CHANGELOG.md		CHANGELOG.md
CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md		CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
CONTRIBUTING.md		CONTRIBUTING.md
LICENSE		LICENSE
README.md		README.md
SECURITY.md		SECURITY.md
biome.json		biome.json
cog.toml		cog.toml
eslint.config.mjs		eslint.config.mjs
glama.json		glama.json
package.json		package.json
pnpm-lock.yaml		pnpm-lock.yaml
server.json		server.json
smithery.yaml		smithery.yaml
tsconfig.build.json		tsconfig.build.json
tsconfig.json		tsconfig.json
vitest.config.ts		vitest.config.ts

License

codefuturist/email-mcp

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Email MCP Server

Highlights

Table of Contents

Security

Background

Install

Usage

Setup

Test Connections

Configure Your MCP Client

CLI Commands

Configuration

OAuth2 (experimental)

Environment Variables

Email Scheduling

Real-time Watcher & AI Hooks

Presets

Static Rules

Alerts

API

Tools (47)

Read (14)

Write (9)

Manage (7)

Labels (5)

Watcher & Alerts (6)

Calendar & Reminders (6)

Prompts (7)

Resources (6)

Provider Auto-Detection

Architecture

Maintainers

Contributing

License

About

Topics

Resources

License

Code of conduct

Contributing

Security policy

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