A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that enables AI assistants like Claude to read, send, search, and manage emails in Apple Mail on macOS.
Note: This is the npm/Node.js package — install with
npxornpm. There is an unrelated Python project of the same name on PyPI (imdinu/apple-mail-mcp) installed viapipx/uvx. If you're usinguvxand seeing acycloptsdependency error, you're looking for that project, not this one.
This server acts as a bridge between AI assistants and Apple Mail. Once configured, you can ask Claude (or any MCP-compatible AI) to:
- "Check my inbox for unread messages"
- "Find emails from john@example.com"
- "Send an email to the team about the meeting"
- "Create a draft email for me to review"
- "Reply to that message"
- "Forward this to my colleague"
- "Move old newsletters to the Archive folder"
The AI assistant communicates with this server, which then uses AppleScript to interact with the Mail app on your Mac. All data stays local on your machine.
If you're using Claude Code (in Terminal or VS Code), just ask Claude to install it:
Install the sweetrb/apple-mail-mcp MCP server so you can help me manage my Apple Mail
Claude will handle the installation and configuration automatically.
Or register it deterministically in one command:
claude mcp add apple-mail -s user -- npx -y apple-mail-mcpInstall as a Claude Code plugin for automatic configuration and enhanced AI behavior:
/plugin marketplace add sweetrb/apple-mail-mcp
/plugin install apple-mailThis method also installs a skill that teaches Claude when and how to use Apple Mail effectively.
Configuring IMAP/SMTP for a plugin install: a plugin install has no editable
envblock, so supply settings via the config file at~/Library/Application Support/apple-mail-mcp/config.json— Method B in the IMAP / SMTP Setup Guide. Passwords stay in the macOS Keychain; run thedoctortool to verify.
Install the same public marketplace in Codex:
codex plugin marketplace add sweetrb/apple-mail-mcp
codex plugin add apple-mail@apple-mail-mcpThe Codex package registers the same apple-mail MCP server through an exactly pinned runtime — npx -y apple-mail-mcp@<plugin version> — and includes the Apple Mail skill guidance. The pin in codex/.mcp.json is rewritten to match package.json by scripts/sync-plugin-version.mjs on every version bump, so the plugin manifest and the server it launches are always the same release; CI fails the PR if they drift.
Two more hosts can run the same apple-mail MCP server (npx -y apple-mail-mcp):
-
Hermes Agent (NousResearch) — Hermes has no plugin/marketplace drop-in, so there is nothing in this repo to install from. Register the server with the CLI:
hermes mcp add apple-mail --command npx --args -y apple-mail-mcp
Or add it to
~/.hermes/config.yamlby hand:mcp_servers: apple-mail: command: npx args: ["-y", "apple-mail-mcp"]
Restart your Hermes session afterward so the tools load.
-
Antigravity (Google) — add the server entry from
.antigravity-plugin/mcp_config.jsonto~/.gemini/config/mcp_config.json(or via Antigravity's MCP settings).
1. Install the server:
npm install -g apple-mail-mcp2. Add to Claude Desktop (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json):
{
"mcpServers": {
"apple-mail": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["apple-mail-mcp"]
}
}
}3. Restart Claude Desktop and start using natural language:
"Show me my unread emails"
On first use, macOS will ask for permission to automate Mail.app. Click "OK" to allow.
The server works out of the box over AppleScript with no configuration. Two opt-in power features take a one-time setup:
- Fast IMAP reads — server-side search, counts, and large-mailbox handling that AppleScript is too slow for (it times out on big Gmail mailboxes).
- Clean SMTP sending —
send-emailsubmits clean MIME directly, avoiding the macOS 15+ Mail.app<blockquote>wrapping that otherwise makes sent mail look quoted/indented like a reply.
Both are driven by non-secret APPLE_MAIL_MCP_* settings — supplied via an env
block or a config.json file (for hosts like Claude Desktop that strip env)
— with passwords kept in the macOS Keychain, never in config.
👉 IMAP / SMTP Setup Guide — step-by-step: app passwords,
Keychain, both config methods, multi-account, SMTP, verification with the doctor
tool, and troubleshooting. Verify any time by running the doctor tool.
- macOS - Apple Mail and AppleScript are macOS-only
- Node.js 20+ - Required for the MCP server
- Node.js 22.5+ and Full Disk Access - Required by
search-contactsonly. It reads the Contacts database directly through Node's built-innode:sqlite, which does not exist before 22.5. On an older runtime, or without Full Disk Access for the Node binary, it logs one line to stderr and returns an empty list rather than an error — so "no contacts found" can mean "cannot read Contacts". Every other tool works on Node 20+. See Node runtime & TCC permissions. - Apple Mail - Must have at least one account configured (iCloud, Gmail, Exchange, etc.)
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| List Messages | List messages with pagination, sender filter, date display |
| Search Messages | Search by sender, subject, content, date range, read/flagged status — across all accounts |
| Read Messages | Get full email content (plain text or HTML) |
| Send Email | Compose and send new emails (attach by file path or inline base64 content) |
| Send Serial Email | Mail merge — send personalized emails to a list of recipients with {{placeholder}} support |
| Create Draft | Save emails to Drafts folder (attach by file path or inline base64 content) |
| Reply | Reply to messages (with reply-all support) |
| Forward | Forward messages to new recipients |
| Get Thread | Group a conversation by normalized subject (across AppleScript or IMAP) |
| Mark Read/Unread | Change read status (single or batch) |
| Flag/Unflag | Flag or unflag messages (single or batch) |
| Delete Messages | Move messages to trash (single or batch) |
| Move Messages | Organize into mailboxes (single or batch) |
| List Attachments | View attachment metadata (name, type, size) |
| Save Attachment | Save attachments to disk |
| Fetch Attachment | Get an attachment's bytes as base64 (no disk write) |
Read/list/get tools also return structured JSON (structuredContent) alongside the text, so agents can consume results without parsing prose.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| List Mailboxes | Show all folders with message/unread counts |
| Create/Delete/Rename Mailbox | Full mailbox lifecycle management |
| List Accounts | Show configured accounts |
| Unread Count | Get unread counts per mailbox |
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| List Rules | View all mail rules and their enabled status |
| Enable/Disable Rules | Toggle mail rules on or off |
| Create/Delete Rules | Create rules with conditions + actions, or delete by name |
| Search Contacts | Look up contacts from Contacts.app by name |
| Email Templates | Save, list, use, and delete reusable email templates (persisted to disk across restarts) |
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Health Check | Verify Mail.app connectivity |
| Doctor | Diagnose Mail permission, account state, and each IMAP/SMTP backend with actionable messages |
| Statistics | Message and unread counts per account, recently received stats |
| Sync Status | Check if Mail.app is actively syncing |
| Effect reconciliation | Every delete/move reports what it actually did to the mailbox (countDelta), and warns when more messages left than were operated on — see Auditing destructive operations |
Resources expose read-only context the client can attach without a tool call:
mail://accounts, mail://templates, and mail://mailboxes/{account}. Prompts
package common workflows: triage-inbox, compose-reply, weekly-summary.
This section documents all available tools. AI agents should use these tool names and parameters exactly as specified.
Search for messages matching criteria. Searches all accounts by default.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
query |
string | No | Text to search in subject/sender |
from |
string | No | Filter by sender email address |
subject |
string | No | Filter by subject line |
mailbox |
string | No | Mailbox to search in (omit to search all mailboxes) |
account |
string | No | Account to search in (omit to search all accounts) |
isRead |
boolean | No | Filter by read status |
isFlagged |
boolean | No | Filter by flagged status |
dateFrom |
string | No | Start date filter (e.g., "January 1, 2026") |
dateTo |
string | No | End date filter (e.g., "March 1, 2026") |
limit |
number | No | Max results, 1–500 (default: 50) |
Large mailboxes & partial results. Apple Mail's AppleScript bridge cannot search very large IMAP/Gmail mailboxes (tens of thousands of messages) before the Apple Event times out — empirically even reading the newest 20 messages of a 44k-message mailbox takes ~45s. To avoid burning minutes only to return a misleading empty result, an unscoped (all-mailboxes) search skips mailboxes whose message count exceeds a threshold (default 5000), enforces a per-account time budget, and reports anything it skipped or that timed out rather than silently returning nothing. When coverage is incomplete the result includes an explicit warning, e.g.:
⚠️ Partial results — this is NOT a confirmed "no such mail":
- skipped mailbox(es) too large to search via AppleScript: Gmail / All Mail (44287) — scope the search with `mailbox` + a `dateFrom`/`dateTo` window to target them
To search inside a large mailbox, scope the call with mailbox (and ideally a
dateFrom/dateTo window). Tune or disable the skip threshold with the
APPLE_MAIL_MAX_SEARCH_MAILBOX environment variable (default 5000; set to 0
to disable the guard and attempt every mailbox regardless of size).
(#24)
Get the full content of a message.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
id |
string | Yes | Message ID |
preferHtml |
boolean | No | Return HTML source instead of plain text |
mailbox |
string | No | Mailbox holding the message (e.g. "Sent Items"). With account, opens that mailbox directly instead of scanning every mailbox — this is the fix for timeouts on large folders |
account |
string | No | Account holding the message. Pair with mailbox to skip the cross-mailbox scan |
Returns: Subject line and message body (plain text by default, HTML if preferHtml is true and HTML content is available).
Large messages / attachments: reading a full message routes through
osascript, whose captured output buffer defaults to 64 MB. Override it with theAPPLE_MAIL_MCP_MAX_BUFFERenvironment variable (in bytes) if you work with messages whose raw MIME (e.g. a large embedded attachment) exceeds that — a value below the message size makes the read fail with a buffer-overflow error rather than truncating (#27).
List messages in a mailbox.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
mailbox |
string | No | Mailbox name (omit to list from all mailboxes) |
account |
string | No | Account name |
limit |
number | No | Max messages, 1–500 (default: 50) |
offset |
number | No | Number of messages to skip, ≥ 0 (for pagination) |
from |
string | No | Filter by sender email address or name |
unreadOnly |
boolean | No | Only show unread messages |
Returns: List of messages with ID, date, subject, and sender.
Send a new email immediately.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
to |
string[] | Yes | Recipient addresses |
subject |
string | Yes | Email subject |
body |
string | Yes | Email body (plain text) |
cc |
string[] | No | CC recipients |
bcc |
string[] | No | BCC recipients |
account |
string | No | Mail.app account label, or an email-form SMTP From override. An SMTP override must match APPLE_MAIL_MCP_SMTP_USER, APPLE_MAIL_MCP_SMTP_FROM, or an address in APPLE_MAIL_MCP_SMTP_ALLOWED_FROM |
attachments |
(string | {filename, contentBase64})[] | No | Up to 20 attachments: absolute file paths inside the configured read roots (e.g., "/Users/me/Documents/report.pdf") and/or inline {filename, contentBase64} objects up to 25 MiB decoded each |
transport |
"applescript" | "smtp" |
No | Send transport. If omitted, SMTP is used automatically when configured (otherwise AppleScript). Pass "smtp" to require clean MIME, or "applescript" to force the Mail.app path — see SMTP transport |
Example:
{
"to": ["colleague@company.com"],
"subject": "Meeting Tomorrow",
"body": "Hi, just confirming our meeting at 2pm tomorrow.",
"account": "Work",
"attachments": ["/Users/me/Documents/agenda.pdf"]
}On macOS 15+ (Sequoia/Tahoe), Mail.app wraps any AppleScript-injected body in
<blockquote type="cite"> under the Apple-Mail-URLShareWrapperClass template,
so emails sent through the default applescript transport render to recipients
as if they were quoted/forwarded (Apple radar FB11734014, open since
Ventura). The SMTP transport bypasses Mail.app entirely and submits clean MIME
directly. Once SMTP is configured, send-email uses it automatically (no
need to pass transport per call); pass transport: "applescript" to force the
Mail.app path.
Two differences to know when SMTP is auto-preferred:
- No Sent-folder copy. SMTP submission does not file the message in Mail.app's
Sent mailbox (the server's own "save to Sent" may, depending on provider). Use
transport: "applescript"if you need the local Sent copy. accountis a From override, not account selection. Over SMTP,accountis used as the From address only when it is an email address; a Mail.app account label (e.g."Work") can't select an account over SMTP, so a call that passes one is left on the AppleScript path automatically. To force account selection, passtransport: "applescript"explicitly. For sender safety, an email-form override must match the SMTP login user, the configuredAPPLE_MAIL_MCP_SMTP_FROM, or an address listed in the comma-separatedAPPLE_MAIL_MCP_SMTP_ALLOWED_FROM; any other From address is rejected before connecting.
Both plain-text and HTML bodies are supported — over SMTP an HTML body (CLI
--html-body-file) is sent as multipart/alternative with the plain-text
fallback.
Configure SMTP via environment variables on the MCP server. The password is read from the macOS Keychain by default, so no secret goes in config:
Non-implicit-TLS SMTP connections fail closed if STARTTLS is unavailable.
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_SMTP_ALLOW_PLAINTEXT=1 is a deliberate escape hatch for a
trusted isolated server or test fixture; it disables the upgrade requirement and
can expose credentials and message content. The server emits a warning when it
is used. Keep the default unset.
| Variable | Required | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_SMTP_HOST |
Yes | — | SMTP server hostname (e.g. smtp.fastmail.com) |
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_SMTP_USER |
Yes | — | SMTP username |
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_SMTP_PORT |
No | 465 if secure, else 587 |
SMTP port |
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_SMTP_SECURE |
No | false |
true for implicit TLS (port 465); otherwise STARTTLS |
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_SMTP_ALLOW_PLAINTEXT |
No | 0 |
Set 1 only for an explicitly trusted plaintext test/server; otherwise STARTTLS is required |
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_SMTP_FROM |
No | = user | From address |
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_SMTP_ALLOWED_FROM |
No | — | Comma-separated sender aliases permitted as per-message From overrides |
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_SMTP_PASSWORD |
No | — | Password (if set, used instead of the Keychain) |
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_SMTP_KEYCHAIN_SERVICE |
No | = host | Keychain item service/server name |
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_SMTP_KEYCHAIN_ACCOUNT |
No | = user | Keychain item account |
Store the password in the Keychain once (an app-specific password for Gmail/
iCloud). A generic-password item with an explicit service name keeps it from
colliding with the system mail account password, and matches
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_SMTP_KEYCHAIN_SERVICE:
# Fastmail (Keychain service defaults to the host)
security add-internet-password -s smtp.fastmail.com -a you@example.com -w
# Gmail / Google Workspace, using a dedicated Keychain service name:
# APPLE_MAIL_MCP_SMTP_HOST=smtp.gmail.com
# APPLE_MAIL_MCP_SMTP_USER=you@gmail.com
# APPLE_MAIL_MCP_SMTP_KEYCHAIN_SERVICE=apple-mail-mcp-smtp
security add-generic-password -s apple-mail-mcp-smtp -a you@gmail.com -wOnce the env vars are set, a plain send-email (no transport) already goes
out clean:
{
"to": ["colleague@company.com"],
"subject": "Standings",
"body": "Plain body — no blockquote wrapping."
}The package also installs an apple-mail-send binary — a standalone CLI over the
same SMTP path, for cron jobs, scheduled tasks, and scripts that can't run an MCP
session. It reads the identical APPLE_MAIL_MCP_SMTP_* env + Keychain config:
apple-mail-send \
--from you@example.com --to colleague@company.com \
--subject "Standings" --body-file /tmp/body.txt \
[--html-body-file /tmp/body.html] [--attach /tmp/report.pdf]Repeatable --to/--cc/--bcc/--attach; an --html-body-file is sent as a
multipart/alternative alongside the plain --body-file. Exit codes follow
sysexits.h: 0 success, 64 usage error, 66 unreadable body file, 78
SMTP not configured.
📘 For step-by-step setup (app passwords, Keychain, config methods, multi-account, upgrading, troubleshooting), see the IMAP / SMTP Setup Guide. The summary below is the reference; the guide is the walkthrough.
AppleScript runs search/list predicates client-side over the Apple Event
bridge, which is slow and can time out (false-empty) on large Gmail/IMAP
mailboxes (see #24), and
its delete/rename mailbox and draft handlers don't work on server-side
accounts at all (#42). When an account is configured for IMAP, the MCP routes to
a server-side IMAP backend (#43)
that is fast and correct on exactly those mailboxes. This is opt-in and
additive: any account without IMAP configured behaves exactly as before
(AppleScript).
What routes to IMAP when an account is IMAP-configured:
- Read:
search-messages,list-messages(server-sideSEARCH, typically sub-second), andget-message. - Folder ops:
create-mailbox,rename-mailbox,delete-mailbox— IMAP'sCREATE/RENAME/DELETEsucceed on the iCloud/Gmail/Workspace/Exchange mailboxes Mail.app's AppleScript bridge can't touch (#42). - Message mutations:
mark-as-read/unread,flag-message/unflag-message,move-message,delete-message. - Batch mutations (2.1):
batch-mark-as-read/unread,batch-flag/unflag-messages,batch-move-messages,batch-delete-messages—imap:ids are grouped by mailbox and applied as a singleUID STORE/UID MOVE; numeric ids in the same batch still use AppleScript. - Counts & stats (2.1):
get-unread-countandlist-mailboxesuseSTATUS;get-mail-statsusesSTATUS+SEARCH SINCE— authoritative and fast even on huge mailboxes. As of v2.6.0 these prefer IMAP whenever it's configured (see Read routing below), merging across accounts when noaccountis given. - Attachments (2.1):
list-attachments,save-attachment,fetch-attachmentuseBODYSTRUCTURE+FETCH BODY[part]forimap:ids — faster and able to see MIME-embedded attachments AppleScript misses. - Threading (2.1):
get-threadlinks a conversation viaReferences/Message-ID(HEADER SEARCH) for animap:seed, falling back to subject grouping otherwise.
Message ids are backend-tagged. The IMAP read path emits self-describing ids
of the form imap:<token> (the token encodes the account, mailbox path, and
UID). Pass that id back to get-message, a message mutation, a batch op, or the
attachment/thread tools and it routes to IMAP automatically; bare numeric ids
continue to use AppleScript. So an agent never has to know which backend a
message came from — the id carries it.
Read routing (v2.6.0): reads PREFER direct IMAP whenever IMAP is configured.
The read tools — search-messages, get-thread, list-messages,
list-mailboxes, get-unread-count, get-mail-stats — now go to IMAP whenever
any APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_* account is configured, not just when an explicit
matching account is passed. There are three cases:
- Explicit IMAP account — single-account IMAP (fast server-side path).
- Explicit non-IMAP account — AppleScript (that account isn't on IMAP).
- No
accountgiven — merge across all accounts: the query fans out over every configured IMAP account, and AppleScript runs only for the accounts no IMAP config covers (the account list is partitioned — accounts already served by IMAP are not re-scanned via AppleScript). If every Mail account is IMAP-configured, AppleScript is skipped entirely. The results are merged so no account is dropped. Message lists still de-duplicate as a safety net (preferring the IMAP copy, which carries the round-trippableimap:id) and sort newest-first; count tools (get-unread-count,get-mail-stats) count each account via exactly one backend so a coverage mismatch can never double- (or under-) count.- Default mailbox is resolved per account. When you don't pin a
mailbox, a fan-out search scopes each account to its own default — Gmail/Workspace to[Gmail]/All Mail, every other IMAP host (iCloud, etc.) toINBOX(since[Gmail]/All Mailis Gmail-only and selecting it elsewhere would silently drop that account). Pin amailboxto search a wider scope on non-Gmail accounts.
- Default mailbox is resolved per account. When you don't pin a
If IMAP is not configured at all, every read behaves exactly as before
(pure AppleScript). The three mailbox-write ops (create-mailbox,
delete-mailbox, rename-mailbox) remain conservative — they route to IMAP only
for an explicitly-named IMAP account, never on an omitted account.
| Variable | Required | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_USER |
Yes | — | Login address; setting it enables IMAP |
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_ACCOUNT |
No | = user | Mail account name to match for routing |
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_HOST |
No | imap.gmail.com |
IMAP server hostname |
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_PORT |
No | 993 |
IMAP port (993 = implicit TLS) |
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_ALLOW_PLAINTEXT |
No | 0 |
Set 1 only for an explicitly trusted plaintext test/server; otherwise STARTTLS is required |
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_PASSWORD |
No | — | Password (if set, used instead of the Keychain) |
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_KEYCHAIN_SERVICE |
No | — | Keychain item service/server name |
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_KEYCHAIN_ACCOUNT |
No | = user | Keychain item account |
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_ACCOUNTS |
No | — | JSON array of additional IMAP accounts for multi-account setups (see below) |
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_IDLE |
No | 0 |
Set 1 to enable IMAP IDLE push notifications (new-mail alerts) for every configured account |
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_IDLE_MS |
No | 30000 |
Idle timeout (ms) before a pooled IMAP connection is closed (0 = never close) |
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_STATS_BUDGET_MS |
No | 25000 |
Per-account wall-clock budget for get-mail-stats (minimum 1000). Raise it for very large accounts |
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_STATS_DEADLINE_MS |
No | 50000 |
Overall wall-clock deadline for one get-mail-stats call (minimum 2000), measured from when the request arrived and covering time queued behind other tool calls, account enumeration and every per-account read. Keep it below your client's request timeout |
Multiple IMAP accounts (C2): set APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_ACCOUNTS to a JSON array, e.g.
[{"account":"Work","user":"me@co.com","host":"imap.co.com","keychainService":"imap.co.com"}].
Each entry accepts account, user, host, port, password, keychainService,
keychainAccount. Calls route to the account matching their account argument (or the
decoded imap: id), and each account keeps its own pooled connection.
Non-implicit-TLS IMAP connections require STARTTLS and fail closed when the server
does not offer a usable upgrade. APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_ALLOW_PLAINTEXT=1 is a
deliberate escape hatch for a trusted isolated server or test fixture; it disables
the upgrade requirement and can expose credentials and message content. Keep the
default unset.
As with SMTP, the password is read from the macOS Keychain by default (use
an app-specific password for Gmail/Workspace/iCloud), so no secret goes in
config. Gmail label semantics: common names (All Mail, Sent, Trash,
Spam, Important, …) map to their [Gmail]/… IMAP paths automatically.
Note: IMAP connections are pooled — one kept-alive connection per account is reused across calls (verified with a NOOP, closed after
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_IDLE_MSof inactivity), so there's no per-call connection overhead (#50).iCloud: set
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_HOST=imap.mail.me.com,APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_USERto your iCloud address,APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_ACCOUNTto the Mail account name (e.g.iCloud), and use an app-specific password (from appleid.apple.com) stored in the Keychain.
IMAP connections are a shared, capped resource: Gmail allows at most 15 simultaneous IMAP connections per account, and Apple Mail itself needs some of those slots. This server keeps its footprint small:
- One pooled connection per account, reused across calls and closed after
~30s idle (tune with
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_IDLE_MS;0= never close). So a server that isn't actively serving IMAP calls holds zero connections. - IMAP IDLE is opt-in (
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_IDLE=1). When on, it adds one persistent connection per account (a long-lived watcher), on top of the pooled request connection — leave it off if you don't need push notifications. - Connections are dropped on shutdown — SIGINT/SIGTERM and stdin-EOF (the MCP client/parent going away). As of v2.6.1 the server also self-exits if it becomes orphaned (parent force-quit/crashed → reparented to launchd), polling every 30s, so it can't linger holding sockets after its session is gone.
The catch is multiple concurrent instances. A host like the Claude desktop
app spawns a separate set of MCP servers per open conversation (and respawns
them after a crash), so the footprint is per instance × accounts. With IDLE
off, an idle instance trends to 0 connections; with many active conversations
or IDLE on, the per-account total climbs toward Gmail's 15-connection cap and can
starve Apple Mail of slots (→ intermittent "cannot connect"). If you hit that,
close idle Claude conversations, keep APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_IDLE off unless you
need push, and/or lower APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_IDLE_MS.
Some host apps (e.g. Claude Desktop) launch the MCP server with a scrubbed
environment and ignore the env block in their server config, so there's no way
to pass APPLE_MAIL_MCP_* settings through it. In that case, put them in a JSON
file the host doesn't manage — APPLE_MAIL_MCP_CONFIG_FILE, or by default
~/Library/Application Support/apple-mail-mcp/config.json:
{
"APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_USER": "you@gmail.com",
"APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_HOST": "imap.gmail.com",
"APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_KEYCHAIN_SERVICE": "imap.gmail.com",
"APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_KEYCHAIN_ACCOUNT": "you@gmail.com",
"APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_IDLE": "1"
}The server reads it at startup and merges values into the environment without
overriding anything already set there (so an explicit env still wins). Store
only non-secret config here — passwords belong in the Keychain, never in this
file.
When APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_IDLE=1, the server opens a dedicated, long-lived
connection to each configured IMAP account and watches its INBOX for new
mail. On arrival it pushes two MCP notifications to the client (no polling by the
client required):
notifications/message(logging) — a human-readable line, e.g.New mail in "Work": 2 new message(s) (INBOX now 1843).notifications/resources/updated— for the affected account's resourcemail://mailboxes/{account}, so a client subscribed to that resource knows to re-read it.
This requires an IMAP account to be configured (single-account env or
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_ACCOUNTS); accounts that only use AppleScript aren't
watched. Detection is real-time via the IMAP IDLE EXISTS event where the
server pushes it, with an automatic polling fallback for servers that don't.
Dropped connections reconnect with backoff, and the watchers shut down cleanly on
SIGINT/SIGTERM.
Enable it in your MCP client config alongside the IMAP settings:
{
"mcpServers": {
"apple-mail": {
"command": "node",
"args": ["/path/to/apple-mail-mcp/build/index.js"],
"env": {
"APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_USER": "you@gmail.com",
"APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_KEYCHAIN_SERVICE": "imap.gmail.com",
"APPLE_MAIL_MCP_IMAP_IDLE": "1"
}
}
}
}Note: this is most useful with clients that surface MCP logging messages or subscribe to resource-update notifications. Clients that ignore notifications are unaffected — the feature is opt-in and adds no behavior unless enabled.
Send individual personalized emails to a list of recipients (mail merge). Each recipient receives their own email — recipients don't see each other. Supports {{placeholder}} tokens in both subject and body.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
recipients |
object[] | Yes | List of recipients, max 100 (see below) |
subject |
string | Yes | Email subject — use {{Key}} for placeholders |
body |
string | Yes | Email body — use {{Key}} for placeholders |
account |
string | No | Send from specific account |
delayMs |
number | No | Delay between sends in ms (default: 500, max 10000) |
Each recipient object:
| Field | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
email |
string | Yes | Recipient email address |
variables |
object | Yes | Key-value pairs for placeholder replacement |
Example:
{
"recipients": [
{ "email": "alice@example.com", "variables": { "Name": "Alice", "Company": "Acme" } },
{ "email": "bob@example.com", "variables": { "Name": "Bob", "Company": "Globex" } }
],
"subject": "Hello {{Name}}!",
"body": "Dear {{Name}},\n\nGreat to connect about {{Company}}.\n\nBest regards"
}Returns: Per-recipient success/failure results with a summary count.
Save an email to Drafts without sending.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
to |
string[] | Yes | Recipient addresses |
subject |
string | Yes | Email subject |
body |
string | Yes | Email body (plain text) |
cc |
string[] | No | CC recipients |
bcc |
string[] | No | BCC recipients |
account |
string | No | Account for draft |
attachments |
(string | {filename, contentBase64})[] | No | Up to 20 attachments: absolute file paths inside the configured read roots and/or inline {filename, contentBase64} objects up to 25 MiB decoded each |
Returns: Confirmation that draft was created.
Group a conversation by normalized subject (across the AppleScript or IMAP backend).
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
id |
string | Yes | A message ID in the conversation (numeric or imap:…) |
account |
string | No | Account to search (omit to search all) |
mailbox |
string | No | Mailbox to search (omit to search all) |
limit |
number | No | Max messages in the thread (default 50) |
Returns: The conversation's messages, oldest-first.
Return an attachment's bytes as base64 (the read counterpart to inline-base64 send).
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
id |
string | Yes | Message ID (numeric or imap:…) |
attachmentName |
string | Yes | Attachment filename (from list-attachments) |
Returns: The attachment bytes, base64-encoded (also in structuredContent.contentBase64).
Map imap: message IDs to their numeric Mail.app IDs, via each message's RFC 5322 Message-ID (the join key both backends share). Needed only for the two tools that are numeric-ID-only — reply-to-message and forward-message. Numeric IDs pass through unchanged.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
ids |
string[] | Yes | 1–100 message IDs, each numeric or imap:… |
Returns: For each input ID, its numericId (or null when it can't be resolved) and the messageId used, plus count and resolvedCount. The lookup scopes to the message's account and checks its INBOX first, to avoid scanning a large All Mail/Archive mailbox.
You do not need this for flag colors (v2.10.0+). Colors used to require the numeric-ID path, and older docs and tool descriptions said so.
flag-messageandbatch-flag-messagesnow write the color over IMAP directly, as Mail.app's$MailFlagBit0/1/2keywords, so a smart mailbox keyed on flag color matches an IMAP-flagged message. Resolving IDs just to apply a color reintroduces the AppleScript/TCC dependency 2.10.0 removed. Flag, move, mark, and delete all acceptimap:IDs as-is.
Reply to an existing message.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
id |
string | Yes | Message ID to reply to |
body |
string | Yes | Reply body |
replyAll |
boolean | No | Reply to all recipients (default: false) |
send |
boolean | No | Send immediately (default: true, false = save as draft) |
Example - Reply to sender only:
{
"id": "12345",
"body": "Thanks for the update!"
}Example - Reply all, save as draft:
{
"id": "12345",
"body": "I'll review this and get back to everyone.",
"replyAll": true,
"send": false
}Transport (v2.5.0): when SMTP is configured,
reply-to-messagesends via clean SMTP, threading the reply with proper RFC 5322In-Reply-To/Referencesheaders (built from the original message) so it lands in the same conversation. When SMTP is not configured (or the original lacks the headers needed to thread), it falls back to Mail.app's AppleScriptreply … without opening window— same reliable-from-background-process path as before. See SMTP transport.
send: true, sends real mail immediately and cannot be unsent. Confirm the recipients, subject, and body with the user before calling (or pass send: false to save a draft for review).
Forward a message to new recipients.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
id |
string | Yes | Message ID to forward |
to |
string[] | Yes | Recipients to forward to |
body |
string | No | Message to prepend |
send |
boolean | No | Send immediately (default: true, false = save as draft) |
Transport (v2.5.0): when SMTP is configured,
forward-messagesends via clean SMTP (a fresh message with the original quoted, no threading headers — a forward starts a new conversation). When SMTP is not configured it falls back to Mail.app's AppleScriptforward … without opening window. See SMTP transport.
send: true, sends real mail immediately and cannot be unsent. Confirm the recipients, subject, and body with the user before calling (or pass send: false to save a draft for review).
Change read status of a message.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
id |
string | Yes | Message ID |
Flag or unflag a message. flag-message optionally takes a flag color; unflag-message removes the flag entirely (which also clears any color).
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
id |
string | Yes | Message ID |
color |
string | No | (flag-message only) Flag color: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, gray (grey accepted). Omit for Mail's default flag. |
Flag colors are an Apple Mail feature — the message's flag index (0 red, 1 orange, 2 yellow, 3 green, 4 blue, 5 purple, 6 gray), which is the property a Mail smart mailbox can match on. The color is applied on both routes (since 2.10.0): AppleScript sets the flag index directly, and for an IMAP-routed id (imap:…) the color is written as Mail.app's $MailFlagBit0/1/2 keywords — a 3-bit field holding the same palette index. \Flagged on its own really is colorless, but those keywords ride alongside it in an ordinary UID STORE, so a smart mailbox keyed on flag color matches an IMAP-flagged message too. You do not need to resolve to a numeric id just to color a flag.
To read a color, the IMAP read path returns flagColorIndex in structuredContent — the same 0-6 palette index, omitted when the message carries no color bits. The AppleScript read path does not populate it.
Delete a message (move to trash).
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
id |
string | Yes | Message ID |
structuredContent carries countDelta — what the delete actually did to the
source mailbox. See Auditing destructive operations.
Move a message to a different mailbox.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
id |
string | Yes | Message ID |
mailbox |
string | Yes | Destination mailbox — full path (Work/Archive) or a leaf name that is unique on the account |
account |
string | No | Account containing mailbox |
A destination is matched first as a full path, then as a leaf name. If a leaf
name matches more than one mailbox (e.g. Archive under both Work and
Thornlands), the move is refused with an error naming every candidate — pass
the full path. The same applies to batch-move-messages, delete-mailbox and
rename-mailbox.
structuredContent carries countDelta — what the move actually did to the
source mailbox. See Auditing destructive operations.
List attachments on a message.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
id |
string | Yes | Message ID |
Returns: List of attachments with name, MIME type, and size.
Save a message attachment to disk.
The destination must not already exist: save-attachment fails closed instead
of overwriting an existing file. AppleScript and MIME fallback paths stage the
bytes privately, commit with an exclusive create, and leave the saved file
owner-readable/writable (0600).
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
id |
string | Yes | Message ID |
attachmentName |
string | Yes | Filename of the attachment |
savePath |
string | Yes | Directory to save to |
All batch operations accept an array of message IDs (max 100 per batch) and return per-item success/failure results.
Numeric IDs are scoped to the mailbox you listed them from. Mail.app numbers messages per
mailbox, so on a label store (Gmail, iCloud) one message answers to the same id in INBOX,
Important and All Mail at once — and deleting the All Mail copy is not the same operation as
deleting the INBOX copy. Each id is therefore bound to the mailbox it was listed/searched from and
the operation is applied only there, so list or search the mailbox immediately before acting on
it. An id the server hasn't seen listed is accepted only when exactly one mailbox holds it;
if several do, that id fails with the candidate mailboxes named instead of being applied to an
arbitrary copy. imap:… ids carry their own account + mailbox + UID and are never ambiguous.
Say which mailbox with sourceMailbox / sourceAccount. The binding above is remembered
per running server, so a client that reconnects, restarts, or replays a saved list of ids has
nothing recorded and every id takes the slower whole-tree path — where, on a label store, it is
likely to be refused as ambiguous. Passing the source mailbox explicitly is the reliable way to
stay scoped, and it overrides the remembered location. These parameters name where the ids came
from; for batch-move-messages that is distinct from mailbox, the destination.
sourceMailbox and sourceAccount are an atomic scope pair: provide both for numeric ids.
The server never fills in a missing account from mutable default-send state, because the same
mailbox name can exist in more than one account and numeric ids are only unique within an account
and mailbox. A whitespace-only source field is rejected. sourceAccount by itself pins nothing,
since the mailbox is what an id is scoped to; imap:… ids ignore both fields because they carry
their own account, mailbox, and UID identity.
A repeated id is one message. ids is treated as a set: a duplicate names the same message,
so it is operated on once, and the batch returns one result per distinct id. success is
therefore a count of messages, not of list positions.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
ids |
string[] | Yes | Message IDs to delete (max 100) |
sourceMailbox |
string | No | Mailbox the numeric ids were listed from — pins them to it. Ignored for imap: ids. |
sourceAccount |
string | No | Account the numeric ids were listed from. Required when sourceMailbox is supplied; on its own it pins nothing. |
structuredContent carries countDelta — what the batch actually did to each
source mailbox. See Auditing destructive operations.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
ids |
string[] | Yes | Message IDs to move (max 100) |
mailbox |
string | Yes | Destination mailbox |
account |
string | No | Account containing mailbox |
sourceMailbox |
string | No | Mailbox the numeric ids were listed from — pins them to it. Ignored for imap: ids. |
sourceAccount |
string | No | Account the numeric ids were listed from. Required when sourceMailbox is supplied; on its own it pins nothing. |
structuredContent carries countDelta — what the batch actually did to each
source mailbox. See Auditing destructive operations.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
ids |
string[] | Yes | Message IDs (max 100) |
sourceMailbox |
string | No | Mailbox the numeric ids were listed from — pins them to it. Ignored for imap: ids. |
sourceAccount |
string | No | Account the numeric ids were listed from. Required when sourceMailbox is supplied; on its own it pins nothing. |
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
ids |
string[] | Yes | Message IDs (max 100) |
color |
string | No | (batch-flag-messages only) Flag color — see flag-message. Applied on both routes, so a mixed batch of numeric and imap: ids all end up colored. |
sourceMailbox |
string | No | Mailbox the numeric ids were listed from — pins them to it. Ignored for imap: ids. |
sourceAccount |
string | No | Account the numeric ids were listed from. Required when sourceMailbox is supplied; on its own it pins nothing. |
List all mailboxes for an account.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
account |
string | No | Account to list from, or "On My Mac" for the local store |
Returns: List of mailbox names with message and unread counts. A source that
could not be read is named (partial: true + failedAccounts) rather than
dropped, and a listing Mail refused outright returns an error naming the accounts
that do exist — never an empty list.
Mail's local "On My Mac" mailboxes are not children of any account — they
hang off the application — so they are reported under the synthetic account label
On My Mac. An unscoped call includes them (listed last); account="On My Mac" lists only them. on my computer, local and local folders are accepted
as aliases.
They deliberately do not appear in list-accounts, which reports real
accounts only: the local store is a store, not an account. Nothing selects it
implicitly — omitting account still resolves to a real account for every other
tool.
The mail inside them is reachable too: list-messages and search-messages
accept account="On My Mac", and get-message resolves an id that lives only in
a local mailbox. An id present both in an account mailbox and locally is
reported as ambiguous rather than silently resolving to the account copy.
Get unread message count.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
mailbox |
string | No | Mailbox to check (omit for INBOX) |
account |
string | No | Account to check (omit to sum each account's INBOX) |
Returns: The unread count for the requested scope.
Omitting
mailboxcounts INBOX, not a cross-mailbox total. This changed in 2.8.15: summing every mailbox was slow and wrong on Gmail, where one message appears in INBOX, All Mail and every label it carries. For account-wide totals useget-mail-stats.
Create a new mailbox.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
name |
string | Yes | Mailbox name |
account |
string | No | Account to create in |
Delete a mailbox.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
name |
string | Yes | Mailbox name |
account |
string | No | Account containing mailbox |
Rename a mailbox (creates new, moves messages, deletes old).
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
oldName |
string | Yes | Current mailbox name |
newName |
string | Yes | New mailbox name |
account |
string | No | Account containing mailbox |
Requires Full Disk Access. These tools read and write
~/Library/Mail/V*/MailData/SyncedSmartMailboxes.plist, which is TCC-protected. Without Full Disk Access for the server's Node runtime the read simply finds nothing, and the tools report "no smart mailboxes" or "launch Mail at least once" rather than a permission error — see Node runtime & TCC permissions.
Smart mailboxes are Apple Mail's criteria-based virtual views — not real folders, so no messages are moved. AppleScript's smart mailbox / intelligentes Postfach terms don't compile reliably on localized (e.g. German) macOS, so these tools read and edit ~/Library/Mail/V*/MailData/SyncedSmartMailboxes.plist directly.
How writes stay safe: creating or deleting a smart mailbox first backs the plist up to SyncedSmartMailboxes.plist.bak, edits a temp copy with plutil/PlistBuddy, validates it with plutil -lint, and only then atomically renames it into place. Your existing smart mailboxes — including any with date/data criteria — are never rewritten, only the single target entry is added or removed. These tools do not quit or restart Mail: quit Mail first for reliable results, since a running Mail may not show a new smart mailbox until it's relaunched and can overwrite plist edits it didn't make.
List existing smart mailboxes.
Parameters: None
Returns: List of smart mailbox names + criteria summary.
Create a smart mailbox with a simple contains rule.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
name |
string | Yes | Name for the smart mailbox |
fromContains |
string | No | Match if From contains this |
subjectContains |
string | No | Match if Subject contains this |
bodyContains |
string | No | Match if Body contains this |
Provide at least one of the three *Contains fields.
SyncedSmartMailboxes.plist (backed up + atomic, existing smart mailboxes preserved). Quit Mail first for reliable results; the new smart mailbox appears the next time Mail launches.
Delete a smart mailbox by name.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
name |
string | Yes | Smart mailbox name |
SyncedSmartMailboxes.plist (backed up + atomic; every other smart mailbox is preserved). Not undoable in-app. Confirm the exact name with list-smart-mailboxes first, and quit Mail first for reliable results.
High-level tool: scan recent messages in your INBOXes, detect likely newsletters (volume + signals like List-Unsubscribe, noreply, repetitive subjects), and create smart mailboxes for them (names prefixed "NL: ...").
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
dryRun |
boolean | No | Default true — only propose, do not create |
minCount |
number | No | Min messages from a sender (default 3) |
days |
number | No | Lookback window in days (default 90) |
Defaults to a safe dry run that only proposes. Pass dryRun: false to actually create the smart mailboxes for newsletters cluttering your Inbox.
dryRun: false this edits SyncedSmartMailboxes.plist (backed up + atomic, existing entries preserved) and can create many smart mailboxes at once — review a dry run first. Scans up to ~400 recent messages per inbox via AppleScript, which can be slow on large mailboxes.
List all configured Mail accounts.
Parameters: None
Returns: List of account names and email addresses.
List all mail rules.
Parameters: None
Returns: List of rule names and enabled status.
Enable or disable a mail rule.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
name |
string | Yes | Rule name |
Create a Mail rule with one or more conditions and actions.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
name |
string | Yes | Rule name (must be unique) |
conditions |
object[] | Yes | One or more {field, operator, value} (see below) |
actions |
object | Yes | At least one of markRead, markFlagged, delete, moveTo |
matchAll |
boolean | No | true (default) = all conditions must match; false = any |
enabled |
boolean | No | Whether the rule is enabled on creation (default false) |
Each condition is { field, operator, value } where field is one of from, to, cc, subject, content and operator is one of contains, notContains, equals, beginsWith, endsWith. Actions: markRead / markFlagged / delete (booleans), moveTo (mailbox name) with optional moveToAccount.
New rules are created disabled by default, including rules that delete or move
messages. Review the conditions and actions with list-rules and in Mail.app,
then call enable-rule explicitly when the rule is approved. Set
enabled: true only when immediate activation is deliberate.
Example:
{
"name": "Newsletters",
"conditions": [{ "field": "from", "operator": "contains", "value": "newsletter" }],
"actions": { "markRead": true, "moveTo": "Reading" }
}Delete a mail rule by name.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
name |
string | Yes | Rule name |
Search the macOS Contacts database by name, organization, nickname, or email substring.
Since 2.8.7 this reads the AddressBook SQLite files directly rather than driving Contacts.app over AppleScript, so Contacts.app need not be running and no Automation grant is involved — but the Node runtime does need Full Disk Access, and Node 22.5+ (see Requirements). Without either, the tool returns an empty list rather than an error.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
query |
string | Yes | Substring matched against full name, organization, nickname, or any email address |
Returns: List of contacts with name, email addresses, and phone numbers. Results are not truncated — a broad query returns every match.
Email templates are persisted to disk so they survive server restarts, stored as JSON at APPLE_MAIL_MCP_TEMPLATES_FILE (default ~/Library/Application Support/apple-mail-mcp/templates.json).
Save or update an email template.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
name |
string | Yes | Template name |
subject |
string | Yes | Default subject line |
body |
string | Yes | Template body |
to |
string[] | No | Default recipients |
cc |
string[] | No | Default CC recipients |
id |
string | No | Template ID (for updating) |
List all saved templates.
Parameters: None
Get a template by ID.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
id |
string | Yes | Template ID |
Delete a template.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
id |
string | Yes | Template ID |
Create a draft from a template, with optional overrides.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
id |
string | Yes | Template ID |
to |
string[] | No | Override recipients |
cc |
string[] | No | Override CC |
subject |
string | No | Override subject |
body |
string | No | Override body |
Verify Mail.app connectivity and permissions.
Parameters: None
Returns: Status of all health checks (app running, permissions, account access).
Run a full setup diagnostic: Mail.app automation permission, account state (flagging disabled accounts), and each configured IMAP/SMTP backend — each reported as ok / warn / fail with an actionable message.
Parameters: None
Returns: A per-check report (structuredContent carries the raw {healthy, checks[]}).
Get mail statistics.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
account |
string | No | Limit to one account (uses fast IMAP STATUS when that account is IMAP-configured). Omit to merge across all accounts. |
Returns: Total and per-account message/unread counts, plus recently received stats (24h, 7d, 30d). The scoped IMAP path also returns a perMailbox breakdown.
Gathering stats costs one IMAP STATUS per mailbox, and Gmail lists every label
as a mailbox, so a large account is not instant. Accounts are counted
concurrently, and each is bounded by APPLE_MAIL_MCP_STATS_BUDGET_MS
(default 25000). In the merged all-accounts path an account that fails or
overruns is reported via partial: true + failedAccounts rather than being
folded in as a silent zero; a scoped call to a single account returns an error
naming the budget instead. Raise the budget if you have a very large account.
The whole call is additionally bounded by one wall-clock deadline,
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_STATS_DEADLINE_MS (default 50000), which covers the Mail.app
account enumeration as well as every per-account read. Per-step budgets alone
were not enough: their worst cases add up, and the sum could exceed a
client's request timeout, so the call died with nothing returned instead of
degrading. Keep the deadline below your MCP client's request timeout — whatever
cannot be read inside it is named in failedAccounts, so you always get a
partial answer rather than a dead call.
Concurrent get-mail-stats calls do not run concurrently. Tool calls are
serialized so they cannot race into Mail.app's single-threaded AppleScript
dispatch, so each call waits for the ones ahead of it and per-call latency grows
with queue depth — N concurrent calls take about N × the single-call cost. Since
this is the most expensive read tool, that is very visible here: measured on 3
IMAP accounts, three concurrent calls returned at 5.5s / 10.3s / 15.6s against a
~5.2s solo cost. The deadline is measured from when the request arrived, so
that wait is spent from the same budget as the work: a call that waited ≥1s
reports queueWaitMs, and one that arrives with its deadline already spent
returns straight away naming the queue rather than starting work whose answer
would land after your client has given up. Issue these calls one at a time, and
prefer get-unread-count when a single number will do.
Check Mail.app sync activity.
Parameters: None
Returns: Whether sync is detected, pending uploads, recent activity, and seconds since last change.
delete-message, move-message, batch-delete-messages and
batch-move-messages report what they actually did, not merely that Mail.app did
not raise an error. This exists because of
#155: a batch delete was
reported to have removed two messages whose ids were never passed, and nothing in
the server recorded enough to explain it.
Every one of those four tools counts the affected source mailbox immediately
before and immediately after the mutation, inside the same AppleScript it was
already running (no extra osascript invocations, no measurable cost), and
returns the comparison in structuredContent:
{
"ok": true,
"success": 2,
"failed": 0,
"countDelta": [
{
"account": "you@gmail.com",
"mailbox": "INBOX",
"before": 412,
"after": 408,
"expected": 2,
"observed": 4,
"status": "over"
}
]
}status is deliberately not a pass/fail flag:
status |
Meaning | Warns? |
|---|---|---|
match |
Exactly as many messages left the mailbox as the operation acted on. | No |
over |
More left than were operated on. Messages are unaccounted for. | Yes |
unknown |
No comparison this server is willing to assert. unknownReason says which of four situations produced it. |
No |
unknownReason distinguishes four cases that are not interchangeable:
unknownReason |
Meaning |
|---|---|
count-unreadable |
Mail would not report a count at all (before/after null). |
no-expectation |
No expectation is predictable, so no comparison exists — a move whose destination is the source mailbox. |
count-did-not-move |
The count did not move. On a store that flags deletions instead of removing them this is the ordinary, correct reading for an operation that fully succeeded. |
count-partial |
The count moved, but by less than the operation accounted for. A flag-only store cannot produce this, which is why it is worth telling apart. |
underwas removed in 2.11.0. It used to mean "fewer left than expected" and was documented as routine. Field evidence retired it — see Whyobservedis a lower bound.
Only over produces a warning in the tool's text response. Be precise about what
that warning proves, because a warning is useful only for as long as it is
trusted:
- It establishes that more messages left the source mailbox across the window of the operation than the operation accounted for. That is the data-loss direction, and it is the #155 signature.
- It does not establish that this server removed them. The reading is a before/after pair around a window, so anything else that removes mail from that mailbox inside the window reads identically: a Mail.app rule firing mid-batch, a server-side filter, another client (phone, webmail, a second Mail.app) deleting or moving, or an IMAP expunge landing between the two counts.
Concurrent departure is the benign cause to rule out first, and the warning
text says so. What the asymmetry argument actually buys is the other half:
concurrent arrivals cannot produce over, because a message arriving
mid-operation raises the after-count and biases the reading short.
That is why over is the interesting direction — a strong signal, not a proof.
Setting APPLE_MAIL_MCP_AUDIT_LOG is what settles which one you have: the
collateral diff below names the messages that disappeared, and "the
newsletter my rule files every morning" is a very different report from a message
nothing should have touched.
observed is the movement of Mail's count. It is a lower bound on how many
messages left, not a count of how many left.
On iCloud, @scottstern0325 ran the check that settled this: for two batches
reporting observed: 0, the messages were located in Trash, matched by
date received + sender against the audit log's pre-image. The deletes had
happened. Mail's count had not caught up. Across four readings — 0 of 4, 0 of 1
(a single-id delete), 15 of 16, and 14 of 15 — the shortfall bore no relation
to batch size, which is what a lagging count looks like and not what a
store-behaviour rule looks like.
So a short reading is not evidence about your operation. The per-id outcomes are what report success; this number is not. Do not retry on the strength of it — that is how a message gets deleted twice.
Two things follow:
- A count that does not move at all is still the ordinary reading on a store that
flags deletions instead of removing them (Gmail label mailboxes, IMAP accounts
with "move deleted messages to Trash" off). It reports
unknownReason: "count-did-not-move"and says so, and it is never warned about — a warning that fires on every ordinary Gmail delete would be ignored exactly when it matters. - To confirm where messages went, match them at the destination by
date receivedplus sender — not by the numeric ids you passed. Ids are renumbered by the move and do not survive it.
Removed in 2.11.0: the "reported success with no observed effect" warning.
Shipped in 2.10.30, it fired when the count was flat, the snapshot read cleanly
and nothing had disappeared. Its premise was that the snapshot corroborated the
count — but both are read back-to-back in the same script, and the record that
prompted it turns out to have had both instruments stale at once. It therefore
fired on stores that had done exactly what they were asked. It is gone rather
than narrowed; over is the only surviving assertion.
Three more honesty rules:
-
The expectation is per source mailbox. On a Gmail label store, deleting the
INBOXcopy drops the\Inboxlabel and deleting the[Gmail]/All Mailcopy trashes the message — different operations, but either way the mailbox the ids came from loses exactly one entry per id. That is what is compared. A move's destination count is not checked. -
A move whose destination is the source mailbox is not compared at all. No message should leave, but what Mail does to the count when a message is re-filed into the mailbox it already occupies is unspecified — so
expectedisnull,statusisunknown,notesays why, and no warning is raised. A warning computed against a guessed expectation would fire on an operation that did exactly what it was asked to, which is the one thing this instrumentation must never do.This makes a self-move a blind spot for the always-on layer, and the cost is worth stating plainly: if messages genuinely do disappear during a self-move, nothing warns you, because there was no expectation to compare against.
statusisunknownrather thanmatch, so the result does not claim the operation was clean — but it does not flag it either. The collateral diff still names anything that vanished, so enableAPPLE_MAIL_MCP_AUDIT_LOGif you need coverage for same-mailbox moves. -
A repeated id is one message. The batch tools operate on each distinct id once and return one result per distinct id, so
successcounts messages rather than list positions — andexpectedstays comparable with the mailbox instead of double-counting a duplicate into a falseover.
imap: ids are reconciled too, as of 2.15.0. batch-delete-messages and
batch-move-messages return the same countDelta structure on the IMAP path, so
one shape covers both backends and a mixed batch reports an entry per source
mailbox from whichever backend handled it. The entries are concatenated, never
summed — Mail's own count can lag (#155) while the server's STATUS cannot, and
averaging the two would hide which reading you were looking at.
Only the operations that actually remove messages from their source reconcile.
batch-mark-as-read and the flag tools change no count, so emitting
expected: N, observed: 0 for them would manufacture an alarm; they report no
countDelta at all.
Note the mis-targeting class countDelta was originally built for cannot occur
on the IMAP path — a UID names exactly one message in exactly one mailbox — so
there the value is effect confirmation rather than target confirmation.
Single-message tools carry a post-condition check instead. delete-message and
move-message on an imap: id return a verification object in
structuredContent:
{
"verification": {
"verdict": "verified",
"how": "COPYUID: UID 5 arrived in \"Archive\" as UID 91"
}
}verdict |
Meaning |
|---|---|
verified |
The effect was observed — either the server's UIDPLUS COPYUID named the message's new UID in the destination, or the UID is no longer in the source mailbox. |
unverified |
The server accepted the command and nothing could confirm the effect. Populates why. |
unverified is not a failure and must not be rendered as one — it means
"accepted, no observation either way". It is reported rather than hidden because
an absent verification must never read as a successful one, the same rule the
collateral diff follows. A message that is still in the source mailbox after an
accepted move is reported unverified rather than failed, because a Gmail label
store can legitimately keep a message visible in an all-mail view after a move.
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_AUDIT_LOG |
(off) | Absolute path to an NDJSON file. Setting it enables the audit log and the collateral diff below |
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_AUDIT_SUBJECTS |
0 |
Set 1 to also record message subjects. Separate, deliberate second opt-in — see Privacy |
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_AUDIT_SNAPSHOT_MAX |
2000 |
Skip the collateral snapshot for mailboxes larger than this many messages. 0 disables the snapshot entirely |
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_AUDIT_SNAPSHOT_CHUNK |
250 |
How many messages the collateral snapshot reads from Mail per request. Lower it if Mail declines slices on a very large mailbox |
When set, each destructive operation appends one JSON object per line
containing: timestamp, tool name, server version, the arguments it was called
with, the pre-image of every message it resolved (account, mailbox, numeric
id, RFC Message-ID, date received), the per-id outcome (ok / notfound /
error + reason), the countDelta above, and the collateral diff.
The pre-image is the part that matters after the fact: a Mail.app numeric id is unique only within a mailbox and is reused, so on its own it proves nothing about which message was acted on. The RFC Message-ID does.
The record is framed against its own contents. The Message-ID and (when
enabled) the subject are written by whoever sent the mail, so the control
characters this server frames records with are stripped out of every such value
before it is written — a Message-ID crafted to close a record and open a forged
one cannot invent evidence in the log it is being recorded in. The same stripping
is applied to every other value read out of Mail at runtime (date received,
mailbox and account names, the text of an error Mail raised, the candidate list
behind an "ambiguous id" refusal), so no emitter is an exception. A value that
arrives with those characters in it (which a well-formed Message-ID never does)
is logged with each of them replaced by U+FFFD, so the record shows that the
value was altered rather than quietly shortening it.
Also gated on APPLE_MAIL_MCP_AUDIT_LOG. The mailbox's (numeric id, Message-ID)
pairs are captured before and after the mutation and diffed, so the log names
every message that left — including ones the caller never listed:
{
"account": "you@gmail.com",
"mailbox": "INBOX",
"snapshot": "ok",
"disappeared": [
{ "id": "75811", "messageId": "a@example.com" },
{ "id": "75814", "messageId": "d@example.com" }
],
"unrequested": [{ "id": "75814", "messageId": "d@example.com" }],
"appeared": []
}A non-empty unrequested is the #155 symptom, with names attached. Please
attach that line to the issue if you ever see one.
id is always the plain decimal id you passed, even on a mailbox whose ids
exceed AppleScript's 2^29 integer range (where Mail hands them back as
9.99999999E+8). That normalisation is also what keeps unrequested truthful:
compared in the raw form, a message you explicitly asked to delete would be
reported here as collateral.
This is O(mailbox size), so it is bounded by APPLE_MAIL_MCP_AUDIT_SNAPSHOT_MAX.
When the bound bites, the record says so explicitly ("snapshot": "skipped" with
a reason) rather than omitting the field — a silently skipped snapshot would read
as "nothing collateral happened", which is worse than no snapshot at all.
countDelta is unaffected by the skip and still reconciles the counts.
The mailbox is read in APPLE_MAIL_MCP_AUDIT_SNAPSHOT_CHUNK-sized slices, each
retried once on its own. It used to be a single whole-mailbox read, which meant
Mail declining that one request lost the entire diff — and the bigger the
mailbox, the more likely that was. The mechanism that attributes collateral
damage was therefore least reliable exactly when the blast radius was largest.
When a slice still will not read, the snapshot is reported as partial and it
names its own gap:
{
"snapshot": "partial",
"unobserved": [{ "phase": "after", "ranges": "251-500" }],
"appeared": [],
"skipReason": "Mail would not read 251-500 (after) of this mailbox, so the snapshot has a hole in it. …"
}Each half of the diff is withheld when the snapshot that could refute it has a hole, because a wrong name here is worse than a missing one:
| Hole in | disappeared / unrequested |
appeared |
|---|---|---|
neither ("ok") |
reported | reported |
before |
reported (an undercount — a message never read before cannot be missed after) | withheld |
after |
withheld — a message absent from a partial after may merely be unread, and naming it would present an innocent message as evidence of data loss |
reported |
| both | withheld | withheld |
An absent field means "not computable", never "empty". Check
"snapshot": "ok" before reading disappeared as a clean bill of health.
⚠️ "ok"is necessary, not sufficient. The enumeration's range is bounded by Mail's own message count, and #155 established that count can lag the mutation. A count reading low truncates the enumeration silently — the unread tail is never requested, so it never registers as a failed slice and the status still says"ok"— and messages past that bound would then look like they disappeared. Until that is fixed, treat adisappearedentry as a lead to check, not a proof.
- Default: identifying metadata only — Message-ID, date, mailbox, account, numeric id. Enough to say which message, nothing about what it says.
- Subjects are behind their own opt-in (
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_AUDIT_SUBJECTS=1) because a subject line is frequently the entire sensitive payload, and it is not needed to diagnose #155. - Message bodies are never logged, under any setting.
- The file grows without bound and is never rotated or truncated by this server. Point it somewhere you control, and delete it when you are done. It is written with your user's permissions, wherever you point it; there is no default location precisely so that turning it on is a deliberate act.
- Writes go to that file and nowhere else. Diagnostics go to stderr; nothing is ever written to stdout, which is the JSON-RPC transport.
User: "Check my inbox for new emails"
AI: [calls list-messages]
"You have 12 messages. Here are the most recent..."
User: "Show me emails from Sarah"
AI: [calls search-messages with query="Sarah"]
"Found 3 emails from Sarah across all mailboxes..."
User: "Read the first one"
AI: [calls get-message with id="..."]
"Subject: Project Update..."
By default, operations use Mail.app's configured default send account. Search operations check all accounts when no account is specified. To work with specific accounts:
User: "What email accounts do I have?"
AI: [calls list-accounts]
"You have 3 accounts: iCloud, Gmail, Work Exchange"
User: "Show unread emails in my Work account"
AI: [calls list-messages with account="Work Exchange", mailbox="INBOX"]
"Your Work account has 5 unread messages..."
To pin which account is used when a tool call omits account, set the
APPLE_MAIL_MCP_DEFAULT_ACCOUNT environment variable to an account name or
email. When unset (the default), the server falls back to Mail.app's
default-send account if it is enabled, otherwise the first enabled account. A
disabled account is never selected implicitly — this env var (an explicit,
deliberate pin) is one of the few ways to target one (#47).
User: "Draft an email to the team about the deadline"
AI: [calls create-draft with to=["team@..."], subject="...", body="..."]
"I've created a draft. Please review it in Mail.app before sending."
User: "Send it"
AI: [User opens Mail.app and sends manually, or AI calls send-email]
User: "Send a personalized email to Alice (alice@acme.com), Bob (bob@globex.com),
and Carol (carol@initech.com). Subject: 'Project Update for {{Company}}',
Body: 'Hi {{Name}}, here is the latest update for {{Company}}.'"
AI: [calls send-serial-email with recipients, subject template, and body template]
"Successfully sent 3 email(s):
- alice@acme.com: sent
- bob@globex.com: sent
- carol@initech.com: sent"
User: "Move all newsletters to Archive"
AI: [calls search-messages to find newsletters]
AI: [calls move-message for each, with mailbox="Archive"]
"Moved 8 newsletters to Archive"
- Threat model
- IMAP / SMTP setup guide
- Node runtime and TCC permissions
- Stability and performance audit
npm install -g apple-mail-mcpgit clone https://github.com/sweetrb/apple-mail-mcp.git
cd apple-mail-mcpThe repo ships prebuilt, dependency-free build/index.js and build/cli.js bundles, so a bare clone runs with nothing but Node installed. npm install and npm run build are only needed when you change the source.
You can also install straight from GitHub with
npm install -g github:sweetrb/apple-mail-mcp, but that builds from source (requires pnpm) — prefer the registry package above.
If installed from source, use this configuration:
{
"mcpServers": {
"apple-mail": {
"command": "node",
"args": ["/path/to/apple-mail-mcp/build/index.js"]
}
}
}This repo ships a .mcp.json at its root so that, when you run claude from inside a clone, the server is registered automatically as a project-scope server — no manual config needed. Just launch Claude Code from the repo directory and approve the server when prompted (the bundled build/index.js is committed, so no build step is required).
The entrypoint is written as:
"args": ["${CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR:-.}/build/index.js"]
CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR is the variable Claude Code injects into a project/user-scoped server's environment, and it resolves to the repo root. You must launch claude from inside the repo for this to work — the bare . fallback is only a last resort and is not reliable, because it resolves against the launching process's working directory, not the repo.
Why not
${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}?CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOTis set only for marketplace plugin installs, never for a project-scope clone, so it can't drive the clone workflow. Conversely, a plugin install can't useCLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR(in a plugin, that points at the user's project, not the plugin's own directory). Claude Code does not support nested defaults like${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT:-${CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR:-.}}, so a single entrypoint string cannot serve both contexts. The two distribution paths are therefore decoupled: the plugin carries its own MCP config in.claude-plugin/plugin.json(using${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}), while the root.mcp.jsonis dedicated to the clone workflow (using${CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR:-.}). Becauseplugin.jsondeclares its ownmcpServers, the plugin does not also auto-load the root.mcp.json, so there is no double-registration.
Heads-up on scope precedence: project-scope (
.mcp.json) outranks user-scope. If you also have anapple-mailentry registered at user scope (e.g. an absolute path in~/.claude.json), the project-scope entry wins and the user-scope one is ignored entirely. Pick one — for local development on this repo, the project-scope.mcp.jsonis the intended source. To pin a specific local build instead, register it at local scope (claude mcp add apple-mail -s local -- node /abs/path/build/index.js), which outranks project scope.
- No third parties - The server talks only to Mail.app on this Mac (AppleScript) and, when you configure them, directly to your own mail provider over TLS (IMAP/SMTP). Nothing is sent to this project or any other service. With the default AppleScript backend everything stays on-device; the opt-in IMAP/SMTP backends necessarily reach your provider, which is what they are for.
- Permission required - macOS will prompt for automation permission on first use.
- No credential storage - The server doesn't store any passwords or authentication tokens.
- Email safety - Use
create-draftto review emails before sending. - Attachment read boundary - Outbound file attachments may come from
ordinary files under the home directory,
/Volumes, or temporary directories by default. Hidden files and known credential/configuration locations (including.ssh,.aws,.config/gh, Keychains, and applicationconfig.jsonfiles) are denied. SetAPPLE_MAIL_MCP_ATTACHMENT_READ_ROOTSto a colon-separated list of explicit absolute additional roots when a deliberate other location is required. Paths are canonicalized before use, so symlink escapes are rejected./tmpis world-writable and is a convenience root, not a user-content trust boundary. Inline base64 attachments are unaffected.
| Limitation | Reason |
|---|---|
| macOS only | Apple Mail and AppleScript are macOS-specific |
MCP send-email is plain-text |
The send-email tool sends plain text (reading HTML content is supported). To send HTML, use the bundled apple-mail-send CLI with --html-body-file (sends multipart/alternative via SMTP) |
| Attachment read path restrictions | Outbound file attachments must use full absolute paths inside the default home-directory, /Volumes, or temporary roots, except hidden files and protected credential/configuration locations. Set APPLE_MAIL_MCP_ATTACHMENT_READ_ROOTS to add an explicit absolute root for another deliberate location; symlink escapes are rejected. |
| Smart mailboxes need Mail quit | Smart mailboxes are supported (see Smart Mailbox Operations), but create-/delete-smart-mailbox edit SyncedSmartMailboxes.plist directly — a running Mail may not show a new one until relaunched, and can overwrite plist edits it didn't make. Quit Mail first. Reading them needs Full Disk Access for the Node runtime |
| Very large mailboxes not searchable via AppleScript | Apple Mail's AppleScript bridge times out on mailboxes with tens of thousands of messages, so unscoped search-messages skips mailboxes above APPLE_MAIL_MAX_SEARCH_MAILBOX (default 5000) and reports them as a partial result. Scope with mailbox + a date window — or configure the IMAP backend, which searches these server-side in well under a second. (#24) |
| Can't delete/rename server-side mailboxes or mutate drafts via AppleScript | Mail.app's AppleScript bridge can only delete/rename local "On My Mac" mailboxes and cannot delete/move drafts — it throws AppleEvent handler failed for IMAP/Gmail/Workspace/iCloud/Exchange mailboxes (the GUI can do it). Without IMAP configured, delete-mailbox/rename-mailbox/delete-message/move-message return a clear "do it in Mail.app directly" error instead of a generic failure. With the IMAP backend configured for the account, these operations run via IMAP and succeed. (#42) |
| Message ID format | Message IDs must be numeric (AppleScript ids) or imap:… tokens from the IMAP read path (validated by schema) |
| Batch size cap | Batch operations are limited to 100 messages per request |
| Date filter format | Date filters must be valid parseable dates (e.g., "January 1, 2026" or "2026-03-15"); bare numbers or non-date strings are rejected |
| Attachment save path restrictions | save-attachment only allows saving to home directory, /tmp, /private/tmp, and /Volumes; path traversal is blocked |
| Attachment count limit | send-email and create-draft accept a maximum of 20 file attachments |
| IMAP attachment fetch size | fetch-attachment / save-attachment over IMAP refuse a part larger than 25 MiB — rejected before download when the server declares the size, and the stream is cut off at the limit when it does not |
On macOS 15+ Mail.app wraps AppleScript-injected message bodies in
<blockquote type="cite"> under the Apple-Mail-URLShareWrapperClass template,
so mail sent via the default applescript transport renders to recipients as
quoted/forwarded content (Apple radar FB11734014, open since Ventura, no
fix). Since v1.6.0, send-email accepts transport: "smtp" to bypass Mail.app
and send clean MIME directly — see SMTP transport. The
AppleScript path is still the default and still exhibits Apple's wrapping.
(#12)
Prior to v1.4.0, reply-to-message and forward-message would send messages with empty body text when the MCP server ran as a background process (e.g., spawned via execSync from Node.js, which is how Claude Code invokes it).
Root cause: The AppleScript reply msg with opening window command creates a GUI compose window asynchronously. When set content runs immediately after, the window may not be ready, and the content assignment is silently ignored. Delays (delay 1, delay 2) were unreliable — the compose window's readiness depends on system load, Mail.app state, and whether the process has GUI access.
Fix: Replaced with opening window with without opening window for both reply and forward commands. With this approach, set content works immediately and reliably from background processes. In-Reply-To and References headers are still set correctly by Mail.app, and no GUI compose window is opened.
Update (v2.5.0): when SMTP is configured, reply-to-message and forward-message now prefer clean direct SMTP instead of AppleScript — the same prefer-direct model as send-email. Replies are threaded with RFC 5322 In-Reply-To/References headers built from the original message; forwards start a new conversation. The AppleScript without opening window path above remains the fallback when SMTP is not configured (or, for replies, when the original message lacks the headers needed to thread).
See #7 for full details and the list of approaches that were tested.
When sending content containing backslashes (\) to this MCP server, you must escape them as \\ in the JSON parameters.
Why: The MCP protocol uses JSON for parameter passing. In JSON, a single backslash is an escape character. To include a literal backslash in content, it must be escaped as \\.
Correct — email containing a shell path with an escaped space:
{
"to": ["colleague@company.com"],
"subject": "File Location",
"body": "Run: cp ~/Library/Mobile\\ Documents/report.pdf ~/Desktop/"
}→ arrives as: Run: cp ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/report.pdf ~/Desktop/
In a JSON string literal, \\ — two characters — denotes one literal backslash. Four backslashes (\\\\) denote two literal backslashes, so send those only when the text genuinely contains \\.
Incorrect — the unescaped backslash makes this invalid JSON:
"body": "Run: cp ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/report.pdf ~/Desktop/"
\ (backslash-space) is not a valid JSON escape sequence, so the call is rejected — or, with a laxer parser, the backslash is silently dropped.
Common patterns requiring escaping:
- Shell escaped spaces:
Mobile\ Documents→Mobile\\ Documentsin JSON - Regex patterns:
\d+→\\d+in JSON - A literal double backslash:
\\→\\\\in JSON
If you see errors when sending emails with backslashes, double-check that backslashes are properly escaped in the JSON payload.
- Ensure Mail.app is not frozen
- Try opening Mail.app manually
- Restart the MCP server
- macOS needs automation permission
- Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Automation
- Ensure your terminal/Claude has permission to control Mail
- Message may have been deleted or moved
- Message IDs change if the message is moved between mailboxes
- Use
search-messagesto find the current message ID
- A bare numeric ID identifies a message only within a mailbox, and a label store (Gmail, iCloud)
reports the same message under the same ID in
INBOX,ImportantandAll Mailat once. The server refuses rather than guessing which copy you meant. - Fix it by running
list-messages/search-messageson the mailbox you actually want to act on, then using the IDs from that result — the operation is then scoped to that mailbox. - It only affects IDs the server hasn't seen listed (carried over from an earlier session, or typed
by hand).
imap:…IDs encode their own mailbox and never hit this.
- This is expected for very large IMAP/Gmail mailboxes (e.g. Gmail's
All Mail,Important): Apple Mail can't scan them via AppleScript before timing out, so they're skipped and named in the result rather than silently returning empty. - To search inside one, scope the call with
mailboxand adateFrom/dateTowindow. - Raise or disable the threshold with
APPLE_MAIL_MAX_SEARCH_MAILBOX(default5000;0disables the guard) — note that disabling it can make a single search take minutes. - A
Partial resultswarning means coverage was incomplete; it is not a confirmed "no such mail."
- Account names must match exactly (case-sensitive)
- Use
list-accountsto see exact account names
- Check your network connection
- Verify Mail.app can send emails manually
- Check if the account is configured correctly in Mail.app
- Full text:
Tool '<name>' has an invalid outputSchema: JSON Schema declares an unsupported dialect ("$schema": "http://json-schema.org/draft-07/schema#"). The default validator supports JSON Schema 2020-12 only.The server connects, but no tool is usable. - Upgrade to 2.10.12 or later. Earlier versions advertised their tool schemas in JSON Schema draft-07 (the MCP SDK's converter default); MCP has since standardized on 2020-12 and clients reject anything else. 2.10.12 normalizes every advertised
inputSchema/outputSchemato 2020-12 on the way out. See issue #147. - Nothing to configure — restart your host app after upgrading so it re-reads the tool list.
- The root
.mcp.jsonresolves its entrypoint via${CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR:-.}/build/index.js. Launchclaudefrom inside the repo directory —CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIRonly resolves to the repo root in that case; the bare.fallback uses the launching shell's working directory and will point at the wrong place otherwise. - If you've been editing the source, rerun
npm run build— the server isbuild/index.js, and the committed bundle only reflects your changes after a rebuild. - Run
claude mcp listto check status. If you see a conflicting scopes warning forapple-mail, you have it registered at more than one scope; project-scope wins. See Running from a clone for how scope precedence resolves. - If
claude mcp get apple-mailshows ⏸ Pending approval, approve the project-scope server (Claude Code prompts on startup, or run it again after approving).
This repo is pnpm-only — package.json's preinstall guard hard-fails an npm install, because npm resolves off-lockfile and the committed bundle would then mismatch CI.
corepack enable && pnpm install --frozen-lockfile # Install dependencies
pnpm run build # Typecheck, then bundle src/index.ts + src/cli.ts into build/ (esbuild)
pnpm test # Run unit tests
pnpm run test:integration # Run integration tests (requires Mail.app)
pnpm run test:all # Run all tests (unit + integration)
pnpm run lint # Check code style
pnpm run format # Format codeRob Sweet - President, Superior Technologies Research
A software consulting, contracting, and development company.
- Email: rob@superiortech.io
- GitHub: @sweetrb
MIT License - see LICENSE for details.
Contributions are welcome! Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.
Part of a family of macOS MCP servers:
- apple-notes-mcp — MCP server for Apple Notes (create, search, update, and export notes)
- apple-numbers-mcp — MCP server for Apple Numbers (read and write .numbers spreadsheets)
- apple-photos-mcp — MCP server for Apple Photos (query metadata and export originals)
If macOS keeps re-prompting for Full Disk Access or Automation for node (often after a brew upgrade), see docs/NODE-RUNTIME-AND-TCC-PERMISSIONS.md — the fix is to run this server under the official, Developer-ID-signed Node so the grant survives Node updates.