About Apple Mail MCP
Apple Mail MCP is an MCP server published by imdinu in the Developer Tools category: fast MCP server for Apple Mail — 87x faster email fetching, FTS5 body search in ~2ms. 5 tools for Claude Desktop & Claude Code. It has been installed 0 times through Conduid.
The repository has 2 stars and 0 forks, with the last commit 6 months ago. Six months or more without a commit doesn't mean the server is broken, but check the open issues (0) before depending on it in production.
Install
npx apple-mail-mcpThis server has no ConduID identity, so agent calls to it are not receipted. Pin the version you install and review the source before granting it credentials.
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README
Apple Mail MCP
The only Apple Mail MCP server with full-text email search. Reliable on large mailboxes where other servers timeout — with 8 tools for reading, searching, and extracting email content.
Read the docs for the full guide.
Quick Start
pipx install apple-mail-mcp
Add to your MCP client:
{
"mcpServers": {
"mail": {
"command": "apple-mail-mcp"
}
}
}
Build the Search Index (Recommended)
# Requires Full Disk Access for Terminal
# System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access → Add Terminal
apple-mail-mcp index --verbose
Tools
| Tool | Purpose |
|---|---|
list_accounts() |
List email accounts |
list_mailboxes(account?) |
List mailboxes |
get_emails(filter?, limit?) |
Get emails — all, unread, flagged, today, last_7_days |
get_email(message_id) |
Get single email with full content + attachments |
search(query, scope?, before?, after?, highlight?) |
Search — all, subject, sender, body, attachments |
get_email_links(message_id) |
Extract links from an email |
get_email_attachment(message_id, filename) |
Extract attachment content |
get_attachment(message_id, filename) |
Deprecated — use get_email_attachment() |
Performance
Tested against 6 other Apple Mail MCP servers on a 30K+ email mailbox:
- Only server that completes all operations without timing out
- Only server with full-text body search (FTS5 index, ~20ms)
- 5ms single email fetch via disk-first
.emlxreading - 7–9ms subject search via FTS5 (vs 230ms+ for AppleScript-based servers)
Configuration
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
APPLE_MAIL_DEFAULT_ACCOUNT |
First account | Default email account |
APPLE_MAIL_DEFAULT_MAILBOX |
INBOX |
Default mailbox |
APPLE_MAIL_INDEX_PATH |
~/.apple-mail-mcp/index.db |
Index location |
APPLE_MAIL_INDEX_MAX_EMAILS |
5000 |
Max emails indexed per mailbox |
APPLE_MAIL_INDEX_EXCLUDE_MAILBOXES |
Drafts |
Mailboxes to skip in search |
APPLE_MAIL_READ_ONLY |
false |
Disable write operations |
{
"mcpServers": {
"mail": {
"command": "apple-mail-mcp",
"args": ["--watch"],
"env": {
"APPLE_MAIL_DEFAULT_ACCOUNT": "Work"
}
}
}
}
CLI Usage
All tools are also available as standalone CLI commands (no MCP server needed):
apple-mail-mcp search "quarterly report" --scope subject
apple-mail-mcp search "invoice" --after 2026-01-01 --limit 10
apple-mail-mcp read 12345
apple-mail-mcp emails --filter unread --limit 10
apple-mail-mcp accounts
apple-mail-mcp mailboxes --account Work
apple-mail-mcp extract 12345 invoice.pdf
All commands output JSON. Generate a Claude Code skill for CLI-based access:
apple-mail-mcp integrate claude > ~/.claude/skills/apple-mail.md
Migrating from apple-mcp?
If you used supermemoryai/apple-mcp (archived January 2026), apple-mail-mcp is a maintained alternative for the Mail portion specifically. Notes, Messages, Contacts, Calendar, and Reminders are out of scope.
apple-mcp (mail tool, action) |
apple-mail-mcp |
|---|---|
read_emails |
get_emails(filter?, limit?) + get_email(message_id) |
search_emails |
search(query, scope?) — 5 scopes: all, subject, sender, body, attachments |
send_email |
Not yet supported (planned) |
What's different: available on PyPI (pipx install apple-mail-mcp), full-text body search via FTS5 (~20ms), disk-first single-email reads (~5ms), reliable on large mailboxes (30K+) where AppleScript-based servers timeout.
Development
git clone https://github.com/imdinu/apple-mail-mcp
cd apple-mail-mcp
uv sync
uv run ruff check src/
uv run pytest
License
GPL-3.0-or-later
README mirrored from the source repository 3 months ago. The original is authoritative.