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Connect your mailbox to ChatGPT
Install Mailbox MCP from the ChatGPT plugin directory, reviewed and listed by OpenAI, or connect it yourself in developer mode. Your own mailbox either way.
Install Mailbox MCP from the ChatGPT plugin directory
Since there is a shorter route than everything further down this page. OpenAI reviewed Mailbox MCP and listed it in the ChatGPT plugin directory. So you add it the way you add any other plugin: no developer mode, no URL to paste, and on a personal plan nobody to ask.
It is now the quickest way to connect ChatGPT to Gmail, to Outlook, or to any IMAP mailbox you already own. We opened the listing on a ChatGPT Plus account in a browser that day, and followed its connect step through to our sign-in page. The notice and the button names below are the ones it showed.
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Open the listing
In ChatGPT, select Plugins in the sidebar and search for Mailbox MCP, or go straight to our listing in the plugin directory. It shows three example prompts, the description and, under Information, the developer: BSolve IT Limited, the company behind this site.
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Install it, then continue to Mailbox MCP
Select Install plugin. ChatGPT then shows a Connect Mailbox MCP notice saying what the app will be able to see, which ends in a Continue to Mailbox MCP button. That button leaves ChatGPT for our sign-in page.
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Sign in and choose the mailbox
Sign in to the control panel, or create an account and add your mailbox if this is your first time. Then choose which mailbox this connection opens and its permission level: read only, draft and file, or send and delete. Approving it returns you to ChatGPT.
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Ask
ChatGPT uses an installed plugin when a request needs it, or you can name it with
@Mailbox MCP. Ask for something only your mailbox can answer, such as the test further down this page.
Which plans can do this is OpenAI's to say, and their answer is broader than it is for developer mode:
The plugin directory is available across ChatGPT plans. Installing or using an individual plugin depends on your plan, workspace, role, region, and its included capabilities.
OpenAI, Plugins in ChatGPT
Read the second sentence as carefully as the first. Everyone can browse the directory; whether your account can install from it is a separate question that OpenAI answers per plan and per workspace. We have Mailbox MCP installed on Plus and have not tried Free. On a Business workspace OpenAI says apps are enabled by default, but an administrator still decides which plugins members can install, so that is the conversation to have if Install plugin is missing.
One connection opens one mailbox, the same rule as everywhere else on this site. To add a second, open the listing again. Under Connected accounts there is a Connect another account button, which runs the same sign-in and lets you choose a different mailbox.
OpenAI's advice when more than one account is connected is to say which one you mean in your request. We tested that on 6 October 2026: one chat read the newest email in 2 of our mailboxes through the plugin and said which account it used for each. Multiple email accounts in ChatGPT has the captures.
One difference from developer mode is worth knowing before you choose. The tools run on our live server either way, but the directory version works from the tool list OpenAI has checked, and OpenAI re-reads ours on a schedule:
After initial publication, OpenAI scans your hosted MCP server daily. Eligible updates become available after automated checks pass, without a new package version or a separate publish action.
OpenAI, Upload and submit your plugin
So a fix to how a tool behaves reaches you at once, because the call itself goes to our server. A tool or an option we add reaches developer mode the day it ships, and the directory version once OpenAI's next check of it passes. If a page here describes something your ChatGPT does not offer yet, that gap is usually why, and developer mode is the way to have it the same day.
ChatGPT and IMAP email on your own domain
The email apps ChatGPT offers itself are Gmail and Outlook Email: those were the 2 in its @ list when we checked on 6 October 2026. Mail on your own domain, from a web host, Fastmail, Zoho or GMX, reaches ChatGPT through Mailbox MCP over IMAP, with the same tools a Gmail mailbox gets.
You connect the mailbox in our control panel once, with the address and password your mail app already uses, and the panel looks up the server settings. ChatGPT never sees that password: it signs in to us, and we keep the credential encrypted. Connect any IMAP mailbox has the details.
Yahoo Mail in ChatGPT
Yahoo Mail connects the same way, as an IMAP mailbox, with one step first: Yahoo refuses your ordinary password from other mail programs, so you make an app password. Yahoo's own steps: "sign in to the Yahoo Account Security page, click Create app password under 'External connections,' and follow the prompts". Paste it in the control panel and the lookup fills in Yahoo's servers. App passwords for Yahoo, iCloud and Fastmail shows the lookup.
iCloud Mail in ChatGPT
iCloud Mail needs an app-specific password from account.apple.com, because Apple won't take your Apple Account password from another program, and the username has a trap worth knowing before you start. Connect iCloud Mail and your Apple calendar covers both, and the same password opens your iCloud calendar too.
Outlook.com and Hotmail in ChatGPT
A personal Outlook.com, Hotmail or Live address connects over IMAP after one switch in Outlook.com's own settings: Settings, Mail, Forwarding and IMAP, then turn on Let devices and apps use IMAP and save. Until it's on, the sign-in works and the mailbox still won't open, which looks like a wrong password and isn't. A brand-new account keeps it off for about a day. Connect Outlook.com and Hotmail shows where the switch is.
Which ChatGPT plan you need
Everything from here down is the other route, developer mode, where you create the connection yourself from a mailbox's own URL. It suits a workspace that has not allowed the plugin, or anybody who wants a new tool the day it ships.
Here the plan matters more. The short version: ChatGPT Plus is enough, at the time of writing. You enable developer mode yourself and no administrator is involved. On a Business or Enterprise workspace an admin has to open the door before you can start.
We are stating the Plus case plainly because we tested it and because OpenAI's own documentation does not promise it. On we connected this server to a ChatGPT Plus account, the entry paid tier, in a web browser with developer mode switched on, and asked it to send an email. The message arrived, from the right address, with the sending account's own signature on it. Reading, searching and sending all worked.
That is more than OpenAI describes, on 2 counts. Their FAQ says full MCP is a Business and Enterprise/Edu feature, and that Pro accounts get read and fetch. It does not mention Plus at all:
Pro users can build apps using the Apps SDK. Full MCP is only available to Business and Enterprise/Edu users, currently. Pro users can connect MCPs with read/fetch permissions in developer mode.
OpenAI, Developer mode and MCP apps in ChatGPT
Both of those things are true as written, and we would rather show you the disagreement than pick the half that suits us. What we measured is what a Plus account did on the day we tried it. What OpenAI has written is what they currently commit to.
If you are choosing a plan on the strength of this page, note that "currently" is doing real work in that sentence. Start on Plus, because it is the cheapest way to find out. And do not commit a business process to a capability the vendor has not written down.
| Plan | Who switches developer mode on | What we have seen it do |
|---|---|---|
| Plus | You do, in your own settings, and it has to stay on. | Read, search and send. Tested 1 September 2026. |
| Pro | You do, the same way as on Plus. | Not tested by us. OpenAI documents read and fetch here, and Pro carries everything Plus has. |
| Business | An admin or owner, for their own account only. They cannot enable it for a member. | Read and send. This is the tier OpenAI documents for full MCP. |
| Enterprise and Edu | An admin, who can also grant it to named members through role-based access control. | Read and send, with per-action controls an admin sets. |
| Free | Not established. | We have not tested it and OpenAI does not name it. Assume no until somebody checks. |
Developer mode is web only, and still in beta
OpenAI answers this one directly: MCP apps are not available on mobile. Set a developer-mode connection up in a browser, and expect it to be missing from the phone app. The plugin directory is different: OpenAI lists Plugins in the sidebar on web, desktop and mobile.
They also describe full MCP support, including modify and write actions, as rolling out in beta, with functionality, interface and permissions liable to change. Take the screen names below as accurate on rather than as permanent.
Turning developer mode on
Nothing below exists until this is done, and the screens simply do not appear rather than telling you why. Where the toggle lives depends on your plan.
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Plus and Pro
Your own settings, under Apps
You enable it for yourself and nobody has to approve it. OpenAI's note for personal tiers is worth acting on: you must keep developer mode enabled to use custom apps, so this is not a switch you flip once and forget. If the mailbox disappears from your tools list later, check here before you assume anything is broken.
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Business
Workspace Settings, Permissions and Roles
Then Connected Data, and the Developer mode / Create custom MCP connectors toggle. Each admin or owner has to turn it on for themselves: switching it on does not apply it to the other admins in the workspace.
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Enterprise and Edu
Settings, Apps, Advanced Settings
Admins and owners toggle it from their own user settings. They can also use role-based access control to grant developer mode to a chosen set of members, who then find the same toggle in their own settings once access has been given.
On a workspace plan you can also enable it for yourself at the moment you create an app, from Workspace settings, Apps, Create.
Creating the app in developer mode
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Turn developer mode on
As above: yourself on Plus or Pro, an admin on a workspace plan. Nothing below exists until this is done, and the screens simply do not appear rather than telling you why.
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Create the app
On a personal plan, and for an authorised member on a workspace plan, this is your own Settings, then Apps, then Create. Admins and owners can instead go to Workspace settings, then Apps, then Create. It asks for the endpoint and some metadata.
Endpoint One per mailbox, from its Connector tabhttps://mcp.mailbox-mcp.com/db/mcp/YOUR-MAILBOX-KEYWrite the description for the model rather than for a person. It is one of the things ChatGPT reads when deciding whether this app is relevant to a question, and a vague one is the usual reason an app is connected and never used.
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Scan tools and authorise
Pick the authentication mechanism, then click Scan Tools. Because this server uses OAuth, an authorisation prompt appears: it sends you to the control panel to sign in and choose which mailbox this app should open. Wait for the scan to finish, then click Create.
There is no client ID and no secret to paste. The server registers its own client, which is covered in full on the Claude.ai page.
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Test it, and on a workspace plan publish it
The app appears in your own settings under Enabled Apps with a Dev label beside its name. On a personal plan that is the finish line: it is yours, it works, and there is nothing to publish. On a workspace plan it also appears as a draft under Workspace Settings, Apps, Drafts, where an admin can publish it to everyone.
The refresh-token check
OpenAI asks you to check one thing about any OAuth server you attach, and
it is worth knowing the answer for this one before you go looking. Their
guidance is to confirm the provider issues refresh tokens, and to check its
discovery document for offline_access. Their warning is
specific:
If OAuth is configured without
OpenAI, Developer mode and MCP apps in ChatGPToffline_access, ChatGPT may lose access after the original authorization expires because refresh-token renewal may be unavailable, and users may need to reauthenticate.
This server passes both halves of that check, and you can read it yourself
rather than take our word for it. Checked against the live discovery
document on :
grant_types_supported lists authorization_code
and refresh_token, and scopes_supported lists
mcp and offline_access. So refresh tokens are
issued, and the literal scope name their check looks for is there.
This one used to fail, and the page said so
Until the discovery
document advertised mcp and nothing else. Refresh tokens
were always issued, so the connection would very likely have survived
anyway, but OpenAI's check reads the scope list and ours did not name
what it was looking for. It does now. The page carried the gap as a known
failure for the day it existed, which is the same standard everything
else here is held to.
Sending email from ChatGPT works, including on Plus
A fair amount of public commentary says MCP servers in ChatGPT are read-only, or that only search and fetch are supported. That was true of an earlier connector model and it is not true here. We tested it twice, on different tiers, because the second test contradicted the documentation. Then we tested it a third time, with a file attached.
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30 August 2026
A workspace account, read and send
We connected a live mailbox through this route, read from one address and sent from another. Both worked, which is what OpenAI's documentation predicts for this tier.
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1 September 2026
A Plus account, in a browser, sending real mail
One plain instruction of this shape, with no tool named and no folder named: send an email from [identity] to [address] with a really good morning message. ChatGPT chose the send tool, wrote the message, and it was delivered from the right address with that account's own HTML signature on it. OpenAI's FAQ does not mention Plus, and gives even Pro read and fetch only. A write tool ran on the entry paid tier and real mail arrived.
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28 September 2026
An image ChatGPT made, attached straight from the chat
We asked ChatGPT to make an image and email it. It handed the 2.8 MB picture to the server as a link, and it went out on a send, then on a reply, a forward and 4 drafts, each read back from the mailbox with the image attached. Nothing was downloaded first. A document ChatGPT made with code and a picture dropped into the chat arrived the same way.
So the write tools are there: send, reply, forward, draft, rewrite a draft, move, flag and delete. They are the same tools every other client gets, with one addition.
In ChatGPT, the tools that put a file on a message also take a file from the chat, because ChatGPT is the one client that hands a connector its files. Developer-mode connections have had that since 28 September 2026; the directory version gets it when OpenAI's check of it passes.
ChatGPT asks for confirmation before some of them, based on the app's permissions and the context. OpenAI says some especially risky actions are blocked rather than offered for approval.
Do not plan a business process around the Plus result
We are reporting a measurement, not a commitment. OpenAI does not name Plus in its MCP documentation at all, gives even Pro read and fetch, and describes the whole feature as a beta whose permissions may change. If sending from a personal plan matters to you, that is a reason to be somewhere the capability is actually written down, or to use a client without the ambiguity: Claude.ai sends on any plan and always has.
Testing, then publishing to a workspace
Test it before anybody else sees it: open a new chat, select the app from the tools menu or name it in your prompt, and ask for something only your mailbox can answer. On a personal plan this is the whole of the remaining job, and the publishing part below does not apply to you.
Try this first
List my 5 most recent emails with sender and subject, then tell me which ones are waiting on a reply from me.
Nothing is marked read by asking: reading through this server never sets the seen flag, so a test pass leaves your unread markers exactly as they were.
On a workspace plan, only admins and owners can publish. Workspace settings, Apps, Drafts, then Publish, reviewing the safety warnings, which are worth reading properly for a server that can send mail in somebody's name. Published apps appear in the workspace's approved connector list with a custom label.
On Business, publishing is one-way at launch
OpenAI states that on Business plans an app cannot be updated after publishing, and that changing its tools or metadata means recreating and republishing it. Enterprise and Edu have more control: an admin can configure which actions the app may take before and after publishing, and pull updated action definitions with a Refresh button, where new actions arrive disabled by default.
That last point is worth using rather than skipping. If this app exists to triage a shared inbox, deselect the sending actions and it cannot send, whatever anybody types at it.
The mailbox side is free to try: 5 MCP calls a day with no card, on any mailbox. From the ChatGPT plugin directory on Plus you can have this working in a few minutes without asking anybody for permission.
Questions about adding email to ChatGPT
How do I add email to ChatGPT?
Install Mailbox MCP from the ChatGPT plugin directory: open Plugins, search for Mailbox MCP, select Install plugin, then Continue to Mailbox MCP, sign in and choose your mailbox. OpenAI reviewed and listed it on 1 October 2026. If your workspace hasn't allowed the plugin, developer mode works too: create an app with the mailbox's connector URL and sign in when ChatGPT asks.
Does ChatGPT work with IMAP email?
Yes, through Mailbox MCP. The email apps in ChatGPT's own @ list on 6 October 2026 were Gmail and Outlook Email. Any other mailbox that speaks IMAP, on your own domain or from Yahoo, iCloud, Fastmail, Zoho or GMX, connects in our control panel once, and ChatGPT then reads, searches, files and sends from it.
Can I connect more than one mailbox to ChatGPT?
Yes. Each connection opens one mailbox. Open the Mailbox MCP listing again, select Connect another account under Connected accounts, and choose a different mailbox when you sign in. On 6 October 2026 one chat read the newest email in 2 of our mailboxes through the plugin and said which account it used for each, so say which mailbox you mean in your request.
Should I type @Mailbox MCP or $mailbox-mcp in ChatGPT?
Either. Typing @ in a chat opens a list, and picking Mailbox MCP from it points ChatGPT at the plugin. $mailbox-mcp is the same thing written out, which is handy in an instruction you paste, such as a routine: we tested both on 6 October 2026 and both reached the plugin.
What if Install plugin is missing in my ChatGPT workspace?
On a Business workspace an administrator decides which plugins members can install, so ask them to allow Mailbox MCP. Until then developer mode is the other route: it creates the connection from your mailbox's own URL, if your plan and workspace allow developer mode. The sections further up this page walk through it.
Does Mailbox MCP keep a copy of my email?
No. Mailbox MCP reads your mail from the mailbox when ChatGPT asks and keeps no copy of your messages. The mailbox password or sign-in you gave the control panel is encrypted at rest with AES-256, and ChatGPT never sees it: ChatGPT signs in to us, not to your mail server.
Where to go next
Can ChatGPT read my email says what ChatGPT does with a connected mailbox, and what it reads from a saved .eml or .msg file without one.
If your workspace administrator has not allowed the plugin and you cannot use developer mode either, Claude.ai connects the same mailbox in 4 steps on any plan. The comparison of the free email connectors shows where ChatGPT's own Gmail and Outlook apps stop, job by job, beside Mailbox MCP.
Once it works, an email routine can have ChatGPT work the mailbox on a schedule, as one of its own scheduled tasks: a morning brief, or replies drafted for the people waiting on you.
- Whether ChatGPT Free can install the plugin and use its tools. OpenAI says the plugin directory is available across ChatGPT plans and that installing a plugin depends on your plan; we have it installed on Plus and have not tried Free.
- Whether the connect step completes in the ChatGPT phone app. OpenAI lists Plugins in the mobile sidebar; every connection we have made was in a browser.
- In developer mode, whether a personal plan keeps the ability to call write tools. We sent real email from a Plus account on 1 September 2026, but OpenAI's MCP documentation does not mention Plus at all and gives even Pro read and fetch only, so our result is well beyond what they promise and could be withdrawn without notice.
- In developer mode, the exact screen path on a personal plan, both to the developer mode toggle and to the Create screen. OpenAI documents the Business and Enterprise paths and not this one, so we say where it lives rather than naming screens we cannot source.
Read 1 October 2026 Every value on this page came off OpenAI: plugins in ChatGPT on that day. The screen names are OpenAI's and may move: plugins and developer mode are both changing quickly. If it has changed since, tell us and we will read it again.