What it does

The server provides comprehensive email management through 49 MCP tools exposing IMAP and SMTP capabilities. It handles the full email lifecycle: reading, searching, composing, sending, replying, forwarding, managing labels, scheduling future sends, extracting calendar data, and analyzing email patterns across multiple accounts simultaneously. The implementation includes real-time IMAP IDLE watchers with configurable AI-powered triage presets, draft and template management, provider-aware label operations, webhook and desktop alerts, and OAuth2 support (experimental) for Gmail and Microsoft 365. Configuration uses XDG-compliant TOML with auto-detection for Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, iCloud, Fastmail, ProtonMail, Zoho, and GMX.

Who it's for

Backend engineers integrating AI-driven email clients into larger systems. Teams automating workflows across multiple email accounts. Developers building AI assistants that need to compose, search, schedule, and analyze email at scale directly from Claude or MCP clients without context switching to traditional mail applications.

Common use cases

Search and analyze emails across multiple accounts with structured queries and AI-powered triage presets
Schedule emails for future delivery from Claude or other MCP clients
Extract calendar events and invitations from email as ICS data
Generate contextual replies and manage drafts without leaving the assistant
Monitor real-time incoming messages with IMAP IDLE watchers and configurable filtering

Setup pitfalls

High-risk classification due to direct email account access — ensure proper credential management and restrict server access to trusted environments
OAuth2 (Gmail, M365) is experimental — test thoroughly before using in production
Configuration file must be created on the host before running the server — use email-mcp setup to initialize ~/.config/email-mcp/config.toml interactively
Attachment downloads are capped at 5 MB with base64 encoding; larger files will not be retrieved

Tool name

Description

Destructive?

download_attachment

✓ no

list_templates

✓ no

apply_template

✓ no

list_emails

✓ no

get_email

✓ no

get_emails		✓ no
get_email_status		✓ no
search_emails		✓ no
list_labels		✓ no
add_label		✓ no
remove_label⚠		⚠ yes
create_label		✓ no
delete_label⚠		⚠ yes
bulk_action		✓ no
list_accounts		✓ no
extract_contacts		✓ no
get_email_stats		✓ no
schedule_email		✓ no
list_scheduled		✓ no
cancel_scheduled		✓ no
move_email		✓ no
delete_email⚠		⚠ yes
mark_email		✓ no
check_health		✓ no
get_thread		✓ no
list_mailboxes		✓ no
find_email_folder		✓ no
extract_calendar		✓ no
add_to_calendar		✓ no
check_calendar_permissions⚠		⚠ yes
list_calendars		✓ no
list_events		✓ no
list_reminders		✓ no
create_reminder		✓ no
analyze_email_for_scheduling		✓ no
save_draft		✓ no
send_draft		✓ no
create_mailbox		✓ no
rename_mailbox		✓ no
delete_mailbox⚠		⚠ yes
send_email		✓ no
reply_email		✓ no
forward_email		✓ no
get_watcher_status		✓ no
list_presets		✓ no
get_hooks_config		✓ no
check_notification_setup		✓ no
test_notification		✓ no
configure_alerts		✓ no

@codefuturist/email-mcp

What it does

Who it's for

Common use cases

Setup pitfalls