Model Context Protocol server
Connect any IMAP mailbox to Claude
IMAP2AI is an MCP server that gives Claude a mailbox you already have — Gmail, Outlook, or the one your web host gave you. It reads, searches and drafts replies. You press Send.
Free plan · One mailbox · No card
What Claude can do with a connected mailbox
Eleven tools, working against the real mailbox over ordinary IMAP and SMTP. Nothing is mirrored into another system, so what Claude sees is what your mail client sees.
Reads what actually arrived
Clean text, not raw MIME. HTML converted, quoted history separated, signature images not listed as attachments, and a message forwarded as an attachment read as text.
Searches the way you would
By sender, subject, body or full text, in any folder, filtered by unread or by date. Accented characters — č, š, ž, ü, ø — are sent correctly instead of being mangled.
Drafts that thread
A reply is saved to Drafts with the right In-Reply-To headers, so Outlook shows it under the original conversation rather than as a loose message.
Files, flags and follow-ups
Move messages into folders you use as stages, set flags that survive in your mail client, and search every folder for replies — which is how you find who never answered.
How it works
Add the mailbox
Enter the address and password; the server names are filled in from your domain. We open a real IMAP and SMTP connection before saving. If it fails, you are told which part failed, and nothing is stored.
Copy the connector URL
You get one URL for that mailbox, shown once. Paste it into claude.ai under Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector. No OAuth app to register, no extension to install.
Ask Claude about your mail
“What came in overnight that still needs a reply?” Claude works in the mailbox itself, in any chat where you enable the connector. Drafts appear in your mail app, not in the chat.
What it will and won’t do
Email is the account that can reset every other password, so the limits matter more than the features. These are built in, not preferences you have to remember to set.
Claude drafts. A person sends.
Sending is off when you connect a mailbox, and the send tool returns an error until you turn it on. It is a switch per mailbox, chosen deliberately. The form itself recommends leaving it off.
There is no delete tool
Claude cannot delete a message, empty a folder or purge a trash can — no such tool exists. It can move mail and set flags, and that is all. A move never issues a blind expunge, and if the source copy cannot be removed cleanly you are told so.
Your password is sealed before it is stored
AES-256-GCM, under a master key held only in the server’s environment and never written beside the data. Each mailbox gets its own data key, bound to that mailbox. A database dump without the key opens nothing.
The connector URL is a credential you can revoke
Anyone holding it can use that one mailbox. It is shown once and only its SHA-256 is stored, so we cannot show it again. Revoking takes effect immediately, and a replacement does not require changing your mailbox password.
Your mail is not copied into our database
A fresh IMAP connection per request; the result goes back and nothing is kept. Stored are your settings, the sealed password, a hash of each connector URL, and a log of which tool ran — never a subject, a sender or a folder name.
It only connects to public mail servers
Every mail host is resolved and checked before the socket opens. Private, loopback, link-local and cloud-metadata addresses are refused. The server runs in Frankfurt, inside the EU.
While a call is running, the message passes through the server in memory. Nothing about it is written down, but it is one more machine in the path — and you should know that before you connect a mailbox rather than after.
Built for a mailbox that is the job
This exists because a freight forwarder needed it. Enquiries arrive by email; each one needs a price from a partner before it can be quoted; and every one that goes quiet needs chasing on a schedule nobody keeps. All of that work lives in one mailbox, so the assistant had to live there too.
Quoting and bookings
Work that arrives as a question and leaves as a number, with a partner or supplier in the middle.
A shared info@ or sales@ inbox
Where the thing that costs money is the mail nobody replied to.
Plans
Priced per account, not per mailbox. Every plan gets all eleven tools; what changes is how many mailboxes you can connect and how many calls a day each may make.
| Plan | Mailboxes | Calls / day | Price | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 1 | 200 | €0 | Available now |
| Pro | 3 | 2,000 | €9 / month | Not on sale yet |
| Business | 10 | 10,000 | €29 / month | Not on sale yet |
Questions about connecting email to Claude
How do I connect my email to Claude?
Add your mailbox here and copy the connector URL it gives you. Paste that URL into claude.ai under Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector, then switch the connector on in a chat. Claude can now list folders, search, read messages and write drafts in that mailbox. No OAuth app, no extension.
Does Claude send email on my behalf?
Only if you switch it on. By default Claude writes into your Drafts folder and a person presses Send; the send tool returns an error until direct sending is enabled. It is a per-mailbox switch, off when you connect the mailbox, and the form recommends leaving it off. Drafts still thread correctly under the original conversation.
Which email providers work?
Any mailbox that speaks IMAP and SMTP: Gmail, Outlook and Microsoft 365, Zoho, Fastmail, and any cPanel, Dovecot or Plesk mailbox from a web host. If the account uses two-factor authentication you will usually need an app-specific password. The exceptions are providers with no IMAP at all, or ones needing a local bridge, such as Proton.
What is an IMAP MCP server?
MCP is the Model Context Protocol, the standard way to give an AI assistant access to an outside system. An IMAP MCP server exposes one mailbox over that protocol, using the ordinary IMAP and SMTP access your provider already offers, so the assistant can list folders, search, read messages and save drafts. IMAP2AI is one, with eleven tools.
Is it safe? What happens to my mailbox password?
It is sealed with AES-256-GCM before it reaches the database, under a master key held only in the server’s environment and never stored beside the data, so a database dump without that key opens nothing. The connector URL is a separate credential: only its SHA-256 is kept, and revoking one takes effect immediately.
Do you store my emails?
No message content is stored. The server opens a fresh IMAP connection for each request, returns the result to Claude and keeps nothing. The database holds your mailbox settings, the sealed password, a hash of each connector URL, and a log of which tool ran and whether it worked — no subjects, senders or folder names. The server is in Frankfurt.
Can Claude delete my email?
No. There is no delete tool. Claude can move messages between folders and set flags such as read or flagged, and that is the whole of what it can change. A move never issues a blind expunge, so mail you deleted in Outlook but never purged is not destroyed, and if the source copy cannot be removed you are told.
How is this different from a Gmail integration?
A Gmail integration works if your mail is on Gmail. Most business mail is not — it sits on a web host’s cPanel, a hosting company’s server, or a company mail server, and speaks IMAP. IMAP is the one thing every mailbox has in common, so one connector covers all of them, Gmail and Microsoft 365 included.
Try it on one mailbox
Connect a mailbox, paste one URL into claude.ai, and ask it what arrived yesterday. If the connection does not work, the test tells you which setting is wrong before anything is saved.