Apple Mail

Name: Apple Mail
Author: imdinu

Fast MCP server for Apple Mail with batch JXA (87x faster) and FTS5 search index (700-3500x faster).

Install

Install and configure the MCP from https://github.com/imdinu/apple-mail-mcp now. Follow the repository's installation instructions, ask me for anything you can't complete yourself, and verify its tools load.

View source on GitHub

README

Apple Mail MCP

The only Apple Mail MCP server with full-coverage body search — reliable on large mailboxes where AppleScript-based servers timeout. 8 tools for reading, searching, and extracting email content.

Read the docs for the full guide.

Quick Start

Claude Code (plugin)

claude plugin marketplace add imdinu/apple-mail-mcp
claude plugin install apple-mail@imdinu

Claude Desktop (one-click bundle)

Download apple-mail-mcp-<version>.mcpb from the latest release and double-click it.

Both the plugin and the bundle run the released PyPI package via a thin launcher (uvx → pipx → private venv, whichever is available) — no vendored code, identical behavior to a manual install. They start the server with --watch; grant Full Disk Access to the launching app (Claude Code / Claude Desktop) so the index stays fresh.

Any MCP client

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

Configure (Optional)

apple-mail-mcp init   # writes ~/.apple-mail-mcp/config.toml

Writes a commented config file you can edit to set defaults like your primary account or mailbox. Every key has a matching APPLE_MAIL_* env var if you prefer environment-based config. See Configuration for the full schema and precedence rules.

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 real ~73K-message mailbox:

Only server with full-coverage body search. Most competitors don't support body search at all; the one that does (BastianZim) live-scans only the 5000 most recent messages — silent miss on anything older. Our FTS5 index covers the entire mailbox.
~3ms single email fetch via disk-first .emlx reading (no JXA round-trip).
~1ms list_accounts and ~5ms 50-email listing via direct Envelope-Index SQLite reads (0.4+) — same path BastianZim/rusty/pl-lyfx use, with JXA as the correctness fallback.
~7ms subject search via FTS5 — competitive with native Rust on the same operation.
Reliable across all 6 benchmarked operations on a 73K mailbox; AppleScript-based servers timeout, throw syntax errors, or skip operations they don't support.

Configuration

Apple Mail MCP works out of the box. To customize defaults, run apple-mail-mcp init to generate a config.toml template — or use the matching APPLE_MAIL_* environment variables. See the Configuration docs for the full schema and the CLI > env > file > default precedence.

Per-client env overrides via the MCP client's launch config also work:

{
  "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

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