# Apple Mail MCP

<!-- mcp-name: io.github.imdinu/apple-mail-mcp -->

[![Python 3.11+](https://img.shields.io/badge/python-3.11+-blue.svg)](https://www.python.org/downloads/)
[![License: GPL v3](https://img.shields.io/badge/License-GPLv3-blue.svg)](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0)
[![macOS](https://img.shields.io/badge/platform-macOS-lightgrey.svg)](https://www.apple.com/macos/)
[![MCP](https://img.shields.io/badge/MCP-compatible-green.svg)](https://modelcontextprotocol.io/)
[![Code style: ruff](https://img.shields.io/badge/code%20style-ruff-000000.svg)](https://github.com/astral-sh/ruff)
[![CI](https://github.com/imdinu/apple-mail-mcp/actions/workflows/lint.yml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/imdinu/apple-mail-mcp/actions/workflows/lint.yml)

The only Apple Mail MCP server with **full-text email search**. Reliable on large mailboxes where other servers timeout — with 6 tools for reading, searching, and extracting email content.

**[Read the docs](https://imdinu.github.io/apple-mail-mcp/)** for the full guide.

## Quick Start

```bash
pipx install apple-mail-mcp
```

Add to your MCP client:

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mail": {
      "command": "apple-mail-mcp"
    }
  }
}
```

### Build the Search Index (Recommended)

```bash
# 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?)` | Search — all, subject, sender, body, attachments |
| `get_attachment(message_id, filename)` | Extract attachment to disk, or extract links |

## Performance

Tested against [6 other Apple Mail MCP servers](https://imdinu.github.io/apple-mail-mcp/benchmarks/) 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 `.emlx` reading
- **7–9ms** subject search via FTS5 (vs 230ms+ for AppleScript-based servers)

![Capability Matrix](benchmark_overview.png)

## 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 |

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mail": {
      "command": "apple-mail-mcp",
      "args": ["--watch"],
      "env": {
        "APPLE_MAIL_DEFAULT_ACCOUNT": "Work"
      }
    }
  }
}
```

## Migrating from apple-mcp?

If you used [supermemoryai/apple-mcp](https://github.com/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

```bash
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
