# faq-ai.txt for Mailbox MCP
# Spec: https://www.ai-visibility.org.uk/specifications/faq-ai-txt/ v1.8.0
# Last-Updated: 2026-09-04
Lang: en-GB

# This file consolidates every published Q&A from the website into a single
# AI-ingestible plain-text document. Generated server-side from the same
# source data as the visible HTML on each page so the two cannot drift.

[Overview]

Q: Can Claude actually read and send email from my own mailbox?
A: Yes. Mailbox MCP is a remote MCP server that connects a mailbox you already own to Claude, so Claude can list, search and read messages, draft and send them, reply in thread, move mail between folders and flag it. Nothing in the server is specific to Claude, so the same mailbox works from Cursor or any other MCP client. It is your mailbox on your existing provider. Nothing is copied to a new address and there is nothing to migrate.
URL: [Overview](https://mailbox-mcp.com/#can-claude-actually-read-and-send-email-from)

Q: Does this work with Microsoft 365 and Outlook?
A: Yes, and this is the part most tools get wrong. Microsoft disabled Basic Authentication for IMAP on 1 October 2022, so a username and password cannot open a Microsoft 365 mailbox at all any more, no matter which client is asking. Mailbox MCP connects through Microsoft Graph with a single Microsoft sign-in instead. Sending goes through Graph too, which means you do not need Authenticated SMTP switched on and you do not need to involve your IT department to get it.
URL: [Overview](https://mailbox-mcp.com/#does-this-work-with-microsoft-365-and-outlook)

Q: Why can Google not show me the app password setting?
A: Because app passwords require 2-Step Verification backed by a phone or an authenticator app. Google documents the option as unavailable when 2-Step Verification is set up only for security keys, and a passkey behaves the same way: both replace the sign-in rather than adding a second step to it. Your account still reports 2-Step Verification as ON throughout, which is what makes this so hard to diagnose. That mismatch is what produces the message "The setting that you are looking for is not available for your account". Google now steers new accounts towards passkeys, so this is the default route into the dead end rather than an edge case. Add a phone number or an authenticator app to 2-Step Verification and the setting appears.
URL: [Overview](https://mailbox-mcp.com/#why-can-google-not-show-me-the-app)

Q: Do I need to enable IMAP in my Gmail settings first?
A: No, and you will not find the toggle if you go looking. Google removed it in January 2025 and IMAP is now always on for every Gmail account. Any guide still telling you to turn it on was written before that change and has not been revisited since.
URL: [Overview](https://mailbox-mcp.com/#do-i-need-to-enable-imap-in-my)

Q: Does this only work with Claude, or with any AI?
A: Any AI client that supports remote MCP servers. Mailbox MCP is an ordinary MCP server reached over HTTPS with a bearer token, and nothing in it is specific to one assistant. It works in Claude on the web, the desktop app and Claude Code, and equally in Cursor, VS Code with agent mode, Zed, Cline, Goose, LibreChat, Microsoft Copilot Studio, or an agent you have written yourself against the MCP SDK. The one requirement is that your client can connect to a REMOTE MCP server rather than only a local one; clients limited to local servers can still reach it through a small proxy such as mcp-remote. Assistants with no MCP support at all cannot connect, and that list changes month to month, so check whether yours supports MCP connectors rather than trusting anyone's table of it.
URL: [Overview](https://mailbox-mcp.com/#does-this-only-work-with-claude-or-with)

Q: Does Claude reading a message mark it as read?
A: No. Reading a message through Mailbox MCP leaves the unread flag exactly as it was, so your unread count is still yours and still means something. Marking a message read is a separate action that happens only when you ask for it.
URL: [Overview](https://mailbox-mcp.com/#does-claude-reading-a-message-mark-it-as)

Q: What happens to messages Claude sends? Do they appear in Sent?
A: They appear in Sent Items once, with the same Message-ID the recipient received, so your sent folder is a true record. Replies carry the In-Reply-To and References headers, which is what makes them land inside the existing conversation in Outlook or Gmail rather than starting a new one alongside it. Both behaviours were checked by comparing the folder before and after each send rather than assumed from the API response.
URL: [Overview](https://mailbox-mcp.com/#what-happens-to-messages-claude-sends-do-they)

Q: Can it attach files to the emails it sends?
A: Yes, and this is where most email integrations fall down. A file can come from four places: one already in your mailbox, such as an invoice somebody sent you; one at a web address, like a SharePoint, Drive or Dropbox link; one from your own computer, through a one-off upload link that needs no sign-in; or one the assistant writes itself. The first three are streamed into the message when it is built and never pass through the assistant at all, so it does not have to encode the file, and a 6 MB PDF costs it no more than a sentence. That matters because the alternative is the assistant writing the whole file out as text, which is slow, expensive, and runs out of room long before the file does. Several files can go on one message, up to 10 MB in total. Only a file the assistant composes itself has to be written out, and only that one is limited to a few tens of kilobytes. A forward carries the original's own attachments and inline images as well.
URL: [Overview](https://mailbox-mcp.com/#can-it-attach-files-to-the-emails-it)

Q: Can it ask for a read receipt, like Outlook does?
A: Yes. A send, a reply, a forward or a draft can carry a read-receipt request, which is the same tick box Outlook offers, and a separate tool finds what came back afterwards. Be clear about what that can tell you, because the honest answer is less than people expect: a read receipt is a request to the recipient, not a measurement of them. Their mail program decides what to do with it, and most either ask them first or ignore it outright. Consumer Gmail never returns one, Google Workspace only if an administrator has enabled it, and Apple Mail only behind a setting that ships switched off. So a receipt that arrives means the message was opened and somebody agreed to say so, and a receipt that never arrives means nothing at all. The tool says exactly that in its own results rather than letting silence be read as being ignored. A delivery receipt is a different thing and is not offered: it needs an SMTP feature none of the mail providers this connects to support, so requesting one would appear to work and do nothing.
URL: [Overview](https://mailbox-mcp.com/#can-it-ask-for-a-read-receipt-like)

Q: What does Mailbox MCP cost?
A: Every mailbox starts free with 5 MCP calls per day. Pro is £2.92 a month per mailbox, paid annually at £34.99 + VAT, renewing annually and paid by card through Stripe, and raises that ceiling to 1,000 calls per day. One account holds as many mailboxes as you like and Pro is bought per mailbox, so you can run one Pro mailbox alongside several free ones. You can stop the renewal on any mailbox at any time and Pro then runs to the end of the period you have paid for.
URL: [Overview](https://mailbox-mcp.com/#what-does-mailbox-mcp-cost)

Q: What can Mailbox MCP not do?
A: You can attach several files to a single message, but 10 MB is the total across all of them rather than a per-file allowance, so three 4 MB files are refused. That ceiling is ours rather than your provider's, and it applies whether the file is already in your mailbox, at a web address, or uploaded from your computer through a one-off link: none of those passes through the model. A file the assistant writes itself has to fit in its own output and is therefore far smaller, a few tens of kilobytes. It does not archive, back up or export your mailbox, and it is not a migration tool. It does not manage contacts or files. A calendar is reached only where one has been connected, which is its own step on top of connecting the mailbox, and there is a route for every mailbox: approving calendar access on a Microsoft 365 sign-in, signing in to Google for a Google calendar, or giving the address of a CalDAV server, which Fastmail, iCloud, Nextcloud and most hosts run. A mailbox with no calendar connected reads and writes mail and nothing beyond that, and is handed no calendar tools at all rather than tools that would refuse.
URL: [Overview](https://mailbox-mcp.com/#what-can-mailbox-mcp-not-do)

[Pricing and billing]

Q: Is the price per mailbox or per account?
A: Per mailbox. One account holds as many mailboxes as you like and Pro is bought for each mailbox you want it on, so holding one Pro mailbox alongside several free ones is a normal way to use it. We say this plainly because the alternative reading is the one that generates angry emails.
URL: [Pricing and billing](https://mailbox-mcp.com/pricing/#is-the-price-per-mailbox-or-per-account)

Q: What happens when I reach the free limit?
A: The mailbox stops accepting further MCP calls, and starts accepting them again as soon as its earliest recent call passes 24 hours old. The limit is a rolling 24 hours rather than a counter that empties at midnight, so a busy afternoon never costs you the following morning. Nothing is deleted, nothing is disconnected, and no charge is made. The limit is 5 calls per mailbox in any 24 hours, and that is the same number in the control panel as it is on this page.
URL: [Pricing and billing](https://mailbox-mcp.com/pricing/#what-happens-when-i-reach-the-free-limit)

Q: Does Pro renew automatically?
A: Yes, annually, and you can stop the renewal on any mailbox at any time. Pro then continues to the end of the period you have already paid for rather than stopping on the day you cancel.
URL: [Pricing and billing](https://mailbox-mcp.com/pricing/#does-pro-renew-automatically)

Q: How do I pay?
A: By card, through Stripe. Card details are entered on Stripe and are never held by us.
URL: [Pricing and billing](https://mailbox-mcp.com/pricing/#how-do-i-pay)

Q: Is there a free trial of Pro?
A: There is no time-limited trial, because the free tier is better than one: it does not expire. Every tool works on the free tier, mail and calendar alike, and the only difference is the daily call limit, so you can test the thing you are actually buying for as long as you want before buying it.
URL: [Pricing and billing](https://mailbox-mcp.com/pricing/#is-there-a-free-trial-of-pro)

Q: Do the calendar tools cost extra, or come out of a separate allowance?
A: Neither. They are metered exactly like the mail tools, out of the same daily allowance on the same mailbox, and there is nothing extra to buy. Checking when four people are free, booking the meeting and sending the invitations is three calls, in the same way that finding a thread and replying to it is three. Whether a mailbox gets the calendar tools at all depends on whether a calendar has been connected to it rather than on its plan, and they are there on the free tier as well as on Pro.
URL: [Pricing and billing](https://mailbox-mcp.com/pricing/#do-the-calendar-tools-cost-extra-or-come)

Q: Can I get a refund?
A: Yes. Our refunds and cancellation policy sets out the full terms, including your statutory right to cancel within 14 days as a UK consumer buying online.
URL: [Pricing and billing](https://mailbox-mcp.com/pricing/#can-i-get-a-refund)

[AI client compatibility]

Q: Does Mailbox MCP only work with Claude?
A: No. It is an ordinary MCP server reached over HTTPS with a bearer token, and nothing in it is specific to one assistant. Claude is what most people arrive already using, which is why the rest of the site names it, but the same URL works in Cursor, VS Code, Zed, Cline, Goose, LibreChat, ChatGPT and any agent written against an MCP SDK.
URL: [AI client compatibility](https://mailbox-mcp.com/works-with/#does-mailbox-mcp-only-work-with-claude)

Q: Is there a different price for using it with something other than Claude?
A: No. There is one price and it is per mailbox, not per client or per seat. You can connect the same mailbox from your editor and your phone and it is still one mailbox.
URL: [AI client compatibility](https://mailbox-mcp.com/works-with/#is-there-a-different-price-for-using-it)

Q: Can I use one mailbox from more than one AI client at once?
A: Yes. The connection belongs to your account rather than to a device or an application, so the same mailbox can be reached from Claude on your phone and from your editor on your desktop. Calls from all of them count towards the same daily limit on a free mailbox.
URL: [AI client compatibility](https://mailbox-mcp.com/works-with/#can-i-use-one-mailbox-from-more-than)

Q: My client only supports local MCP servers. Can I still use this?
A: Yes, through a small local proxy such as mcp-remote, which runs on your machine, presents itself to your client as a local server, and forwards to ours. Once it is running the connection behaves like any other. It does mean the connection is only live while that machine is, which is the thing a remote server otherwise saves you from.
URL: [AI client compatibility](https://mailbox-mcp.com/works-with/#my-client-only-supports-local-mcp-servers-can)

Q: Which mailboxes work, and do they all get the calendar tools?
A: Every mailbox works: Microsoft 365 with one Microsoft sign-in, Gmail with an app password, and any other host with its IMAP and SMTP settings. All of them get the same email tools. The calendar is the one thing that differs, because connecting a mailbox does not connect a diary. A Microsoft 365 mailbox gets the calendar tools when its owner approves calendar access on the same sign-in. Every other mailbox has two routes to a diary and can use either: a Google sign-in for Google Calendar, or the address of a CalDAV calendar server, which Fastmail, iCloud, Nextcloud and most mail hosts run. A mailbox with none of them is handed no calendar tools at all rather than tools that would refuse, because one certain to fail still spends a call against your daily allowance to say so.
URL: [AI client compatibility](https://mailbox-mcp.com/works-with/#which-mailboxes-work-and-do-they-all-get)

Q: Can I connect Google Calendar?
A: Yes, on any mailbox, whoever hosts the mail. It is its own sign-in rather than part of the mail connection, and that is not a workaround: an app password is a mail credential that opens IMAP and SMTP and nothing else, and Google refuses one on its own CalDAV endpoint too, so there was never an address to paste. You press Connect Google Calendar in the control panel, choose an account, and Google shows you what is being asked for before you approve it. The account does not have to be the one the mailbox is on, which is useful when the work diary and the work mail are not the same Google account. The permission covers the diary only, never the mail, and you can withdraw it from your Google account at any time.
URL: [AI client compatibility](https://mailbox-mcp.com/works-with/#can-i-connect-google-calendar)

Q: How do I know whether my AI client supports MCP?
A: Look for connectors, MCP servers, tools or extensions in its settings. We deliberately do not publish a compatibility matrix: support changes month to month across a dozen products and a table of ticks on our website would be out of date before it was useful. Your client's own documentation is the answer that stays current.
URL: [AI client compatibility](https://mailbox-mcp.com/works-with/#how-do-i-know-whether-my-ai-client)

[The tool surface]

Q: How many tools are there, and what does each kind do?
A: Twenty-eight email tools on every mailbox, plus up to twenty-one calendar tools once a calendar has been connected, so at most forty-nine in all. A Microsoft 365 mailbox with calendar access approved gets every one of the calendar tools; a Google calendar gets as many as the permissions you approved cover, and never the out-of-office or the counter-proposal, which Google has no equivalent of; a calendar reached at a CalDAV address gets as many as that server supports, which is asked when it connects. Taking the email tools, the split that matters is what each one changes. Eleven only read, so nothing in the mailbox moves when they run. Nine make a change you can put back: creating a folder, saving a draft, marking read or unread, flagging or unflagging, and asking for a link to upload a file. Eight are irreversible or leave your mailbox: sending, replying, forwarding, moving, deleting a message, updating a draft, and renaming or deleting a folder. That split is carried in the tool definitions themselves rather than written on this page.
URL: [The tool surface](https://mailbox-mcp.com/tools/#how-many-tools-are-there-and-what-does)

Q: How does my AI client know which tools to check with me about first?
A: Every tool carries an annotation saying whether it only reads, makes a reversible change, or does something irreversible. Your client reads those annotations and decides whether to run a tool quietly or stop and ask you. That is why the reference is organised by what a tool changes rather than by topic. Clients differ in how strictly they apply it, so the annotation is the fact and your client's behaviour is the thing to check.
URL: [The tool surface](https://mailbox-mcp.com/tools/#how-does-my-ai-client-know-which-tools)

Q: How many messages can it act on in one call?
A: Up to 500. Marking read, marking unread, flagging, unflagging, moving and deleting all take a set of messages rather than one, so filing a morning's inbox of forty is a single call rather than forty. A request for 501 is refused outright rather than quietly acted on for the first 500. If part of a batch fails, the result names which messages did not work and why, because IMAP has no transaction and a batch really can half-work.
URL: [The tool surface](https://mailbox-mcp.com/tools/#how-many-messages-can-it-act-on-in)

Q: Can it delete my email permanently?
A: No. Deleting a message moves it to Trash, exactly as pressing Delete in Outlook would, and you can take it back out. There is no tool that empties a folder and no tool that purges Trash, deliberately. Deleting a folder is refused outright while that folder still holds messages or has sub-folders inside it, and the refusal says what to do instead.
URL: [The tool surface](https://mailbox-mcp.com/tools/#can-it-delete-my-email-permanently)

Q: Why is changing a draft listed as destructive?
A: Because IMAP cannot edit a message once it exists. Only its flags can change, so "edit this draft" is really "save the new version and remove the old one", which is exactly what Outlook does when you edit a draft and save it. The version you replaced is gone rather than sitting in Trash, and that is deliberate: the alternative fills your bin with every wording you rejected. It is the only thing on this surface that removes something outright, it only ever applies to unsent drafts, and the new version is saved before the old one goes, so a failure halfway through leaves you with two drafts rather than none. The annotation is set honestly so your client asks you first, even though the tool sends nothing and reaches nobody.
URL: [The tool surface](https://mailbox-mcp.com/tools/#why-is-changing-a-draft-listed-as-destructive)

Q: Does it tell me when a message I sent bounced?
A: It can find the bounce when you ask. A send is reported successful when the sending server accepts the message, which is not the same as delivered: delivery happens minutes later on somebody else's server, and the bounce comes back as a separate message long after the send finished. The tool looks in Inbox and Junk, because a bounce is automated mail from an unfamiliar server and that is close to a description of what a spam filter targets, and it says whether each failure is permanent or temporary. That difference matters: resending fixes one of them and delivers the message twice on the other.
URL: [The tool surface](https://mailbox-mcp.com/tools/#does-it-tell-me-when-a-message-i)

Q: Does forwarding keep the original attachments?
A: Yes, including inline images, and the result names the files it sent. Anything you attach yourself goes in addition to the original's files rather than instead of them. The ceiling is 10 MB for the whole message rather than per file, so three 4 MB files are refused, and a carried file too large to fit is reported as skipped by name so you know the recipient will not get it.
URL: [The tool surface](https://mailbox-mcp.com/tools/#does-forwarding-keep-the-original-attachments)

Q: Can it check whether my own domain is set up to be trusted?
A: It checks the SPF, DKIM, DMARC and MX records of the connected mailbox's own domain, and only that domain. Two results are worth reading rather than skimming. A DMARC record set to p=none passes every checkbox and instructs receiving servers to do nothing, so the tool says so in a note instead of showing a pass. And a DKIM key that could not be found is reported as a failed lookup rather than as a missing record, because those mean opposite things and a key may simply be published under a selector the check does not know.
URL: [The tool surface](https://mailbox-mcp.com/tools/#can-it-check-whether-my-own-domain-is)

Q: Can it schedule a message to send later?
A: No. There is no scheduling tool and nothing runs while you are away. Every tool on this server acts inside a conversation, when you ask for it. If you want a message to go out on Tuesday morning, save it as a draft and send it on Tuesday morning, or use whatever your mail client already offers. Setting an out-of-office reply for a future date range is not an exception: that is a setting Microsoft applies at the time, exactly as it would if you had set it in Outlook, and nothing of ours is running when it does.
URL: [The tool surface](https://mailbox-mcp.com/tools/#can-it-schedule-a-message-to-send-later)

Q: Which mailboxes get the calendar tools?
A: Three kinds. A Microsoft 365 mailbox, once its owner has approved calendar access when connecting. A Google calendar on any mailbox, connected by signing in to Google once, which is separate from the mail because an app password cannot reach a diary. And any mailbox at all whose owner gives the address of a CalDAV calendar server, which Fastmail, iCloud, Nextcloud and most mail hosts run - on Fastmail and iCloud the same app password opens the mail and the diary. How many tools arrive differs by route: Microsoft answers for all of them, a CalDAV server for as many as it implements, and Google for what you left ticked on its consent screen. A mailbox with no calendar connected gets the email tools and no calendar tools at all - not tools that would refuse, but no tools. That is deliberate: one certain to fail still spends a call against your daily allowance to say so, invites the model to try again a different way, and advertises a capability you did not buy.
URL: [The tool surface](https://mailbox-mcp.com/tools/#which-mailboxes-get-the-calendar-tools)

Q: Will it book a meeting over somebody who is busy?
A: Not on the strength of an answer it could not read. When a person's free/busy cannot be seen - a different organisation, or permission never granted - that person comes back as unknown, and unknown is never rendered as free. Microsoft reports those one attendee at a time inside an otherwise successful response, which is exactly how an integration ends up booking over an afternoon it could not see. What comes back for people who can be read is their busy and free blocks, never the subjects of their meetings.
URL: [The tool surface](https://mailbox-mcp.com/tools/#will-it-book-a-meeting-over-somebody-who)

Q: Can it change a whole recurring meeting by accident?
A: It will not guess. A weekly meeting is two things at once, the series and each date it falls on, and Outlook keeps them apart. So does this: changing an event that is part of a series requires you to say which you meant, and there is no default. Reading the diary shows a repeating meeting on every date it falls on, the way Outlook does, with the id of the series each occurrence belongs to.
URL: [The tool surface](https://mailbox-mcp.com/tools/#can-it-change-a-whole-recurring-meeting-by)

Q: Will it email people without me knowing?
A: Every tool that puts a message in somebody else's inbox says so in its own description, names who will receive it in the result, and carries the annotation that makes your AI client stop and ask first. Inviting people to a meeting, rescheduling one, cancelling one, forwarding an invitation and answering an invitation all send real email from your address. Blocking time in your own calendar sends nothing, and the tool that deletes an event refuses the moment anybody else is invited rather than quietly removing it from your diary while everybody else keeps holding the time.
URL: [The tool surface](https://mailbox-mcp.com/tools/#will-it-email-people-without-me-knowing)

[What an AI can do with your email]

Q: Do I need to pay for an AI to use this?
A: Not necessarily. Anthropic's help centre states that custom connectors using remote MCP are available on Claude, Cowork and Claude Desktop for users on Free, Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans, and that free users are limited to one custom connector. Checked 27 August 2026. One custom connector is one mailbox, and every mailbox here starts free at 5 MCP calls a day with no card, so a free AI plan and a free mailbox is a real set-up rather than a demo. Other clients set their own rules and change them, so check your own plan. Pro here lifts the ceiling to 1,000 calls a day per mailbox; the pricing page states both figures.
URL: [What an AI can do with your email](https://mailbox-mcp.com/what-ai-can-do-with-your-email/#do-i-need-to-pay-for-an-ai)

Q: Which AI should I get?
A: That is a different question from this one, and it is answered properly elsewhere. Mailbox MCP's author also writes on AI Visibility, where there is a comparison of the main AI subscriptions for everyday use with UK prices. It is linked in the sources at the foot of this page, and it is his own writing rather than an independent review. The short version is to work out what you actually use an AI for before paying for a tier that assumes you use it more.
URL: [What an AI can do with your email](https://mailbox-mcp.com/what-ai-can-do-with-your-email/#which-ai-should-i-get)

Q: Does the AI read all my email?
A: No. Listing a folder returns summaries only: sender, subject, date and flags, never message bodies. A body is fetched one message at a time, and only for the messages you asked about. Nothing is copied into a database on our side, because the server has no database, no cache and no message store at all.
URL: [What an AI can do with your email](https://mailbox-mcp.com/what-ai-can-do-with-your-email/#does-the-ai-read-all-my-email)

Q: Does looking through my inbox mark everything as read?
A: No. Reading a message through the server does not mark it read. The IMAP fetch it uses is BODY.PEEK, which is the one that deliberately does not set the Seen flag. Marking a message read is a separate tool and needs a separate instruction, so a survey of your inbox leaves the unread count where it was.
URL: [What an AI can do with your email](https://mailbox-mcp.com/what-ai-can-do-with-your-email/#does-looking-through-my-inbox-mark-everything-as)

Q: Can it manage my calendar as well as my email?
A: Yes, once a calendar is connected, which is a separate step from connecting the mailbox. On a Microsoft 365 mailbox that means approving calendar access, and you get the lot: reading the diary, checking when several people are free, booking your own time, inviting people to a meeting, answering an invitation, and setting your out-of-office reply. Every other mailbox has two routes. Google Calendar takes a Google sign-in of its own, which covers the diary and never the mail, and gets everything above except the out-of-office and the counter-proposal, because Google has no equivalent of either. Or give the address of a CalDAV calendar server, which Fastmail, iCloud, Nextcloud and most mail hosts run, and what that gets you depends on the server, so it is asked when the calendar connects and only the tools it supports are offered. Until a calendar is connected the mailbox is handed no calendar tools at all rather than tools that would refuse.
URL: [What an AI can do with your email](https://mailbox-mcp.com/what-ai-can-do-with-your-email/#can-it-manage-my-calendar-as-well-as)

Q: Is this a plugin or an app I have to install?
A: Neither. There is nothing to install in your mail client and nothing to install on your machine. It is a server your AI client calls over HTTPS, added once in that client's connector settings. The guide on what an email MCP server is covers the mechanism in full if you want it.
URL: [What an AI can do with your email](https://mailbox-mcp.com/what-ai-can-do-with-your-email/#is-this-a-plugin-or-an-app-i)

Q: What if I already pay for an AI email tool?
A: Then you may not need this. A dedicated AI email product gives you a finished interface and its own model, and that genuinely suits somebody who wants one place to work and does not already pay for an AI. The two approaches are set out side by side on the AI email assistants page on this site, without a feature grid, because a feature grid would be wrong within weeks.
URL: [What an AI can do with your email](https://mailbox-mcp.com/what-ai-can-do-with-your-email/#what-if-i-already-pay-for-an-ai)

Q: Does it work on my phone?
A: Yes, once it is set up. Adding a connector may want a desktop or a web session depending on the client, which is the step that catches people out. Using it afterwards is not restricted the same way: the connection belongs to your account rather than to a device or an application, so the same mailbox answers from whichever place that client runs.
URL: [What an AI can do with your email](https://mailbox-mcp.com/what-ai-can-do-with-your-email/#does-it-work-on-my-phone)

Q: What happens when I hit the daily limit?
A: Calls stop for that mailbox until the rolling 24-hour window moves on, and nothing is deleted or changed. The limit is per mailbox rather than per account, so a busy mailbox running out does not stop the others. Free is 5 MCP calls a day and Pro is 1,000 a day, both per mailbox. Pro is a published ceiling, not an unlimited plan.
URL: [What an AI can do with your email](https://mailbox-mcp.com/what-ai-can-do-with-your-email/#what-happens-when-i-hit-the-daily-limit)

[AI email assistants: the two approaches]

Q: Do I have to pick one approach and stick with it?
A: No. Nothing about either approach locks you out of the other. Plenty of people keep a dedicated product for the parts of email it does well and still connect a free AI to a spare mailbox to see what raw access feels like, since every mailbox here starts free with no card.
URL: [AI email assistants: the two approaches](https://mailbox-mcp.com/ai-email-assistants/#do-i-have-to-pick-one-approach-and)

Q: Is a dedicated AI email tool better than connecting the AI I already pay for?
A: Neither is better in general. A dedicated product is a genuinely good choice if you do not already pay for an AI and want one finished app with nothing to configure. Connecting is the better economics if you already pay for an AI and would rather it worked where you already are, in your own mail client.
URL: [AI email assistants: the two approaches](https://mailbox-mcp.com/ai-email-assistants/#is-a-dedicated-ai-email-tool-better-than)

Q: What do I actually lose by not buying a dedicated AI email product?
A: An interface built specifically for email, and whatever automation that product has layered on top of its own model. You keep working in your usual mail client, and the AI you already pay for reaches it rather than replacing it.
URL: [AI email assistants: the two approaches](https://mailbox-mcp.com/ai-email-assistants/#what-do-i-actually-lose-by-not-buying)

Q: Which one costs less?
A: It depends on what you already pay for. A dedicated product is a new subscription on top of anything else you pay for AI, if you pay for one at all. Connecting adds nothing beyond that: on this service specifically, every mailbox starts free at 5 MCP calls a day, and Pro lifts that to 1,000 a day per mailbox for £2.92, paid annually at £34.99 + VAT.
URL: [AI email assistants: the two approaches](https://mailbox-mcp.com/ai-email-assistants/#which-one-costs-less)

Q: Can I switch from a dedicated product to connecting later, or the other way round?
A: Yes. Disconnecting a mailbox, whether from an AI client's settings or from a dedicated product's own account page, is normally a few clicks. Your mailbox stays with your provider throughout, whichever approach happens to be reading it.
URL: [AI email assistants: the two approaches](https://mailbox-mcp.com/ai-email-assistants/#can-i-switch-from-a-dedicated-product-to)

Q: Does connecting my AI do everything a dedicated product's interface does?
A: No, not on its own. A dedicated product can build scheduling, prioritisation and a redesigned inbox view on top of its model. Connecting gives a general AI raw access to your mailbox, reading, searching, sending and filing, without a second interface built around it.
URL: [AI email assistants: the two approaches](https://mailbox-mcp.com/ai-email-assistants/#does-connecting-my-ai-do-everything-a-dedicated)

Q: If I already use a dedicated AI email product, is there any reason to also connect an AI to my mailbox?
A: Sometimes. A general AI you already pay for can answer a question about your mailbox in the middle of a conversation about something else entirely, without switching to a separate app first. That is a different use from what a dedicated product is built for, and it costs nothing to try on a free mailbox before deciding you need either, both, or neither.
URL: [AI email assistants: the two approaches](https://mailbox-mcp.com/ai-email-assistants/#if-i-already-use-a-dedicated-ai-email)

[Connecting an AI client]

Q: Do I need a client ID and a client secret?
A: No. This server registers your client for you the first time it connects, using the dynamic client registration part of the OAuth specification. You paste one URL and sign in. If a set-up guide asks you to copy a client ID and a secret out of a panel, it is describing a server that cannot do that, and pasting values into those fields here only gives the connection something else to get wrong.
URL: [Connecting an AI client](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/#do-i-need-a-client-id-and-a)

Q: Which config file does the snippet go in?
A: It differs per client and every page in this section names the file at the top of the block, because a correct snippet in the wrong file is the most common way a set-up fails silently. Cursor reads ~/.cursor/mcp.json, VS Code reads .vscode/mcp.json or a user file it opens by command, Zed reads its settings.json and Goose reads ~/.config/goose/config.yaml.
URL: [Connecting an AI client](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/#which-config-file-does-the-snippet-go-in)

Q: Why does the top-level key change between clients?
A: Because no standard names it. The protocol specifies how a client and a server talk once they are connected; it does not specify what the configuration file looks like. So Cursor, Windsurf, Cline and LibreChat use mcpServers, VS Code uses servers, Zed uses context_servers and Goose uses extensions, and all four are correct for their own client.
URL: [Connecting an AI client](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/#why-does-the-top-level-key-change-between-clients)

Q: Does reading a message mark it as read?
A: No. Reading through this server never sets the seen flag, so an assistant can go through a backlog without destroying your own unread markers. That is a deliberate design rule rather than a side effect, and it is checked against a real mailbox rather than asserted. Marking something read is a separate tool that only runs when you ask for it.
URL: [Connecting an AI client](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/#does-reading-a-message-mark-it-as-read)

Q: My client is not in this list. Will it still work?
A: Probably. This is an ordinary remote MCP server over Streamable HTTP, so anything that speaks the protocol can hold it, and the SDKs speak it directly. The pages here exist because the settings live somewhere different in every client, not because the server needs anything special from any of them. Tell us which client you are using and we will read its documentation and add a page.
URL: [Connecting an AI client](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/#my-client-is-not-in-this-list-will)

Q: Can I connect more than one mailbox?
A: Yes. Add the server a second time under a different name and sign in again, choosing the other mailbox. The URL is the same both times, because the mailbox is decided during the sign-in rather than by the address. That is why every page here tells you to name the connector after the mailbox: your client will show two entries that are otherwise identical, and "mcp-server-1" tells you nothing about which is which a month later.
URL: [Connecting an AI client](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/#can-i-connect-more-than-one-mailbox)

Q: What happens to the connection if I change my mailbox password?
A: The mailbox stops answering and the tools start failing, because the credential we hold is the one you gave us. Update it in the control panel and the connector starts working again. The connector URL itself does not change, so nothing in your client needs touching.
URL: [Connecting an AI client](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/#what-happens-to-the-connection-if-i-change)

Q: Do I need ChatGPT Business to connect an MCP server?
A: No. ChatGPT Plus is enough, and you switch developer mode on yourself without an administrator. We connected this server to a Plus account in a browser on 1 September 2026 and it read, searched and sent. OpenAI's own FAQ says full MCP is a Business and Enterprise/Edu feature and gives even Pro read and fetch, and it does not mention Plus at all, so treat this as tested rather than promised. Free is untested.
URL: [Connecting an AI client](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/#do-i-need-chatgpt-business-to-connect-an)

Q: Can ChatGPT send email through an MCP server?
A: Yes. The claim that MCP in ChatGPT is read-only described an earlier connector model. We asked a Plus account to send an email with no tool and no folder named, and the message was delivered from the right address with that account's own signature on it. ChatGPT asks for confirmation before some write actions depending on the app's permissions, and OpenAI blocks a few especially risky ones outright rather than offering them for approval.
URL: [Connecting an AI client](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/#can-chatgpt-send-email-through-an-mcp-server)

Q: Will my mailbox work in the ChatGPT phone app?
A: No. OpenAI answers this one directly: MCP apps are web only. Set the connector up in a browser and expect it to be missing on mobile. If you want the same mailbox on a phone, Claude.ai holds it on any plan and its mobile apps see the connector like any other.
URL: [Connecting an AI client](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/#will-my-mailbox-work-in-the-chatgpt-phone)

Q: Is any of this specific to Claude?
A: No, and the key table on this page is the evidence. Claude was the first client most people connected because it was first to ship remote MCP support, but there are 13 clients documented here and the server cannot tell them apart. It answers the protocol, not a brand.
URL: [Connecting an AI client](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/#is-any-of-this-specific-to-claude)

[Features and what they are for]

Q: Can an AI attach a file to an email it sends?
A: Yes, from four different places, and three of them cost the assistant nothing. It can attach a file that is already in your mailbox, such as an invoice somebody sent you. It can attach a file at a web address, like a SharePoint or Drive share link, which the server fetches itself. It can attach a file from your own computer through a one-off upload link that needs no sign-in. And it can attach something it wrote itself, such as a calendar invite. The first three are streamed into the message when it is built and never pass through the assistant, so it never has to encode them and a 6 MB PDF costs it about as much as a sentence. Several files can go on one message, up to 10 MB in total.
URL: [Features and what they are for](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/features/#can-an-ai-attach-a-file-to-an)

Q: Why do other AI tools struggle to send attachments?
A: Because the obvious way to do it is to have the assistant encode the file and hand it over as text, and that only works for very small files. An encoded file is about a third larger than the original, and the assistant has to write out every character of it, so a one megabyte attachment runs to roughly 450,000 words of output. It is slow, it is expensive, and past a certain size the assistant runs out of room and sends the message without the file. Mailbox MCP avoids that entirely for any file that already exists somewhere: the bytes travel from wherever they are into the message, and the assistant only ever handles the reference to them.
URL: [Features and what they are for](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/features/#why-do-other-ai-tools-struggle-to-send)

Q: Will a reply appear inside the original conversation?
A: Yes. A reply carries the In-Reply-To and References headers, which are what a mail client reads to decide where a reply belongs, so it nests under the original in Outlook or Gmail exactly as it would if you had written it. The original is marked answered too, so it shows the reply arrow in your own client. It can also read the whole thread before replying, in a single call, so the reply answers what was actually agreed rather than only the last message in the chain.
URL: [Features and what they are for](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/features/#will-a-reply-appear-inside-the-original-conversation)

Q: Does a forwarded message keep its attachments?
A: Yes. Attachments and inline images travel with a forward, under the forwarded-message block a real mail client produces, and you can copy other people in and add files of your own alongside the original's. Everything still has to fit the 10 MB ceiling for the whole message, and anything that will not fit is named as skipped rather than dropped silently, so you find out before the recipient does.
URL: [Features and what they are for](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/features/#does-a-forwarded-message-keep-its-attachments)

Q: Can it request a read receipt when it sends an email?
A: Yes, on a send, a reply, a forward or a draft, and it is the same request Outlook makes when you tick the read receipt box. A separate tool then finds what came back. Be realistic about what that can prove: a read receipt is a request to the recipient rather than a measurement of them, and most mail programs either ask them first or ignore it. Consumer Gmail never returns one, Google Workspace only if an administrator enabled it, and Apple Mail only behind a setting that ships switched off. A receipt that arrives means the message was opened and somebody agreed to say so. A receipt that never arrives means nothing at all, and the tool says so in its own results rather than letting silence be read as being ignored.
URL: [Features and what they are for](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/features/#can-it-request-a-read-receipt-when-it)

Q: Can it request a delivery receipt as well?
A: No, and the reason is worth knowing because it is not a gap we chose. A delivery receipt is requested at the SMTP level and needs the sending server to support an extension called DSN. Five submission endpoints across both of the SMTP providers this connects to were checked and none of them advertises it, and Microsoft 365 mailboxes do not send over SMTP at all. Adding the request anyway would look like it had worked and do nothing, which is worse than not offering it. If you want to know whether a message reached its destination, checking for bounces is the honest answer: failures are reported back, so no bounce after a few minutes is real evidence.
URL: [Features and what they are for](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/features/#can-it-request-a-delivery-receipt-as-well)

Q: How many messages can it move or file at once?
A: Up to 500 in a single call, and the same ceiling applies to marking messages read, unread or flagged. That is what turns filing a year of newsletters into one request rather than an afternoon. Folders can be created, renamed, or moved under a different parent along with their sub-folders. A folder it creates is subscribed as well as created, which is the difference between a folder appearing in Outlook and one that exists but never shows up.
URL: [Features and what they are for](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/features/#how-many-messages-can-it-move-or-file)

Q: Does an assistant reading my mail mark it as read?
A: No. Reading never sets the read flag, on any tool, in any circumstance. Marking a message read is a separate action that happens only when you ask for it. That matters because an unread count you cannot trust is worse than no unread count: if an assistant quietly marked everything it looked at, you would lose the one signal that tells you what still needs your attention. The same principle runs through the rest of it, with deletes going to Trash rather than being erased and special folders found by their flag rather than guessed at by name.
URL: [Features and what they are for](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/features/#does-an-assistant-reading-my-mail-mark-it)

[Native connectors and MCP]

Q: Is a native connector worse than an email MCP server?
A: No, and on a Gmail or Microsoft 365 mailbox it is usually where you should start. It is free with a subscription you already pay for, it needs no set-up beyond a sign-in, and for searching, summarising and drafting it does the job. This page exists for the cases it does not cover, which are mostly about which mailbox you have and what you want done to it.
URL: [Native connectors and MCP](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/native-vs-mcp/#is-a-native-connector-worse-than-an-email)

Q: Can Claude connect to a mailbox that is not Gmail or Microsoft 365?
A: Not with a native connector. Anthropic publishes connectors for Google Workspace and for Microsoft 365, and the Microsoft one states in writing that personal Microsoft accounts such as outlook.com and hotmail.com addresses cannot be used. A custom remote MCP server is the documented route to anything else, which is what this product is.
URL: [Native connectors and MCP](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/native-vs-mcp/#can-claude-connect-to-a-mailbox-that-is)

Q: Can ChatGPT move or file my email?
A: For your own mailbox, OpenAI publishes no message write actions at all in the Outlook app capability list. It does document marking read and unread and moving messages for shared and delegated mailboxes. The Gmail app holds a scope that would authorise labelling, archiving and trashing, but no product page states that any of it is exposed.
URL: [Native connectors and MCP](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/native-vs-mcp/#can-chatgpt-move-or-file-my-email)

Q: Does Microsoft Copilot send email?
A: Not according to any page we could find. It acts on the mailbox extensively, including flag, archive, delete, move and mark read, and Microsoft describes the drafting flow as ending with the human pressing Send. That is a deliberate design position rather than an oversight: Microsoft says the intent is to give you a chance to review the generated text rather than fully automating it.
URL: [Native connectors and MCP](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/native-vs-mcp/#does-microsoft-copilot-send-email)

Q: Does Gemini file or send mail in Gmail?
A: It summarises, searches, drafts and suggests replies. Every description of it stops at the draft, so no send. Delete and archive were announced in May 2025 as generally available next quarter and today survive only inside a US-only, top-tier Agent Mode with per-action approval.
URL: [Native connectors and MCP](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/native-vs-mcp/#does-gemini-file-or-send-mail-in-gmail)

Q: Does reading an email through a native connector mark it as read?
A: No vendor says. That is the single most surprising finding of the reading behind this page: across five products and every page read on 30 August 2026, nobody documents what an ordinary read does to the seen flag. We can tell you what ours does, because we tested it against a real mailbox: reading never sets it.
URL: [Native connectors and MCP](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/native-vs-mcp/#does-reading-an-email-through-a-native-connector)

Q: Can I use both?
A: Yes, and plenty of people should. Use the native connector for the mailbox it was built for and an MCP server for the one it cannot reach. They are separate tools in the same client, so an assistant can hold your work Microsoft 365 mailbox through Anthropic's connector and your own domain's mailbox through this one at the same time.
URL: [Native connectors and MCP](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/native-vs-mcp/#can-i-use-both)

Q: What happens to Gmail fetching mail from my other accounts?
A: Google is withdrawing it. Its own support page gives January 2027 for the removal of Send-as for third-party accounts, Gmailify, and POP fetching, and says you can no longer add or sync a third-party email account in Gmail on the web. If your arrangement for reaching a non-Google mailbox has been to pull it into Gmail, that route is closing.
URL: [Native connectors and MCP](https://mailbox-mcp.com/docs/native-vs-mcp/#what-happens-to-gmail-fetching-mail-from-my)

[What to ask for]

Q: How many MCP calls does a normal day use?
A: Somebody using this conversationally rather than in bulk tends to spend a handful of calls per session: a search, a couple of reads, a reply. The free tier of 5 calls a day per mailbox covers trying any single use case on this page. A daily triage habit or an unattended agent runs into it quickly, which is what the Pro ceiling is for.
URL: [What to ask for](https://mailbox-mcp.com/use-cases/#how-many-mcp-calls-does-a-normal-day)

Q: Are the call counts on this page exact?
A: No, and they say "about" for that reason. How many calls a request costs depends on how the model chooses to work: one assistant answers a search question in one call, another reads three of the results before summarising. The ranges are what we see rather than a specification, and the control panel shows your own real figures per mailbox.
URL: [What to ask for](https://mailbox-mcp.com/use-cases/#are-the-call-counts-on-this-page-exact)

Q: Does asking for a summary mark my email as read?
A: No. Reading through this server never sets the seen flag, on any tool. Marking something read is a separate tool that runs only when you ask for it, and it is reversible. This is checked against a real mailbox rather than asserted, and it is the one behaviour on this page that no other vendor documents either way about its own product.
URL: [What to ask for](https://mailbox-mcp.com/use-cases/#does-asking-for-a-summary-mark-my-email)

Q: Can it attach a file from my computer?
A: Yes. The assistant asks for a one-off upload link, and either sends the file to that link itself if it can run commands, or hands you the link to drop files on. What arrives lands in your own Drafts folder as a draft you can open, keep or delete, so the files are in your mailbox rather than on our servers, and the link stops working after half an hour. The assistant then attaches them the same way it attaches anything else already in the mailbox: fetched at send time, never passing through the model, inside the ordinary 10 MB limit on the whole message. A file already in your mailbox and a file at a web address both work without any of that. Only something the assistant composes itself has to be far smaller, a few tens of kilobytes, because the model has to produce those bytes as output.
URL: [What to ask for](https://mailbox-mcp.com/use-cases/#can-it-attach-a-file-from-my-computer)

Q: Can it delete my email permanently?
A: No. Deleting moves a message to Trash, exactly as pressing Delete in Outlook would, and it is recoverable from there. There is deliberately no tool that empties a folder and no tool that destroys a message you have received or sent. One tool does remove something outright, and it is worth naming rather than hiding behind the word "nothing": updating a draft replaces it, so the version you changed your mind about is gone instead of sitting in your bin. The new version is saved first, and no message anybody sent you is ever removed this way.
URL: [What to ask for](https://mailbox-mcp.com/use-cases/#can-it-delete-my-email-permanently)

Q: Will my assistant do these things without asking me?
A: That is your client's decision rather than ours. Every tool is annotated: the read ones carry a read-only hint, and the ones that send, move or delete are marked so a host can stop and ask first. Most clients do ask before a destructive tool. What we control is the annotation; what your client does with it is in its own settings.
URL: [What to ask for](https://mailbox-mcp.com/use-cases/#will-my-assistant-do-these-things-without-asking)

Q: Does it work with a mailbox that is not Gmail or Microsoft 365?
A: Yes, and that is most of the point. Anything speaking IMAP and SMTP over TLS connects: your own domain, a web host's mailbox, Fastmail, Zoho, a personal outlook.com address. No native AI connector reaches any of those, which is set out in full on the native connectors comparison.
URL: [What to ask for](https://mailbox-mcp.com/use-cases/#does-it-work-with-a-mailbox-that-is)

Q: Which of these need the paid plan?
A: None of them technically. Every tool is on every plan, including the free one; what differs is how many calls a day you get. So the free tier is enough to try anything on this page against your own mail, and the paid one is what you move to when you start doing it every morning.
URL: [What to ask for](https://mailbox-mcp.com/use-cases/#which-of-these-need-the-paid-plan)

[Email MCP servers compared]

Q: Which email MCP servers work with Microsoft 365?
A: Most of them will connect a Microsoft 365 mailbox over IMAP and SMTP with a password or an app password, and that route is closing. Microsoft removed Basic authentication for IMAP and POP in Exchange Online, and its own documentation notes that the same deprecation prevents the use of app passwords. Mailbox MCP connects Microsoft 365 through Microsoft's own sign-in instead, so the mailbox is reached with a token that Microsoft issues and that you can withdraw from your Microsoft account without involving us. If you are choosing a server for a Microsoft 365 mailbox specifically, that is the difference worth checking before you pay for anything.
URL: [Email MCP servers compared](https://mailbox-mcp.com/best-email-mcp-servers/#which-email-mcp-servers-work-with-microsoft-365)

Q: Why does Microsoft 365 need a sign-in rather than an app password?
A: Because an app password is Basic authentication wearing a different name, and Microsoft has turned Basic authentication off. Its guidance is that the change requires customers to move from apps that use basic authentication to apps that use Modern authentication, which is OAuth 2.0. The practical consequence for a mail tool is that a connection built on a stored mailbox password is not a connection with a shorter life expectancy, it is one Microsoft has already ended for several protocols. A token is also narrower than a password: it carries only the permissions the consent screen listed, and revoking it does not mean changing the password you sign in with everywhere else.
URL: [Email MCP servers compared](https://mailbox-mcp.com/best-email-mcp-servers/#why-does-microsoft-365-need-a-sign-in-rather)

Q: Do any email MCP servers connect a Google Calendar?
A: The hosted email MCP servers we compared offer calendars over CalDAV, which reaches a Fastmail, iCloud or Nextcloud diary and does not reach a Google Calendar or a Microsoft 365 calendar, because neither of those speaks CalDAV in the way a generic client needs. Mailbox MCP connects all three: a Microsoft calendar on the same sign-in as the mail, a Google Calendar through Google's own sign-in, and any CalDAV server by address. If your diary is in Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, which between them is most business diaries, CalDAV support is not the same thing as calendar support.
URL: [Email MCP servers compared](https://mailbox-mcp.com/best-email-mcp-servers/#do-any-email-mcp-servers-connect-a-google)

Q: Can an email MCP server attach a large file without using up the AI context?
A: It depends entirely on where the bytes travel. The obvious implementation has the assistant encode the file and hand it over as text, which is about a third larger than the original and has to be written out character by character, so a one megabyte attachment runs to roughly 450,000 words of output. It is slow, it is expensive, and past a certain size the assistant runs out of room and sends the message without the file. Mailbox MCP fetches the file at send time instead, from your mailbox, from a web address or from a one-off upload link, so the bytes never pass through the conversation and a six megabyte PDF costs the assistant about as much as a sentence.
URL: [Email MCP servers compared](https://mailbox-mcp.com/best-email-mcp-servers/#can-an-email-mcp-server-attach-a-large)

Q: What does a cross mean in the comparison table?
A: It means the capability is not in that product's published tool list or documentation on the date the page was read, which is stated above the table. It does not mean the product cannot do it, and it is not a claim that the vendor has refused to. Vendors publish what they choose to publish, and a capability can exist without being written down. That is why the date matters and why every source is linked at the foot of the page: if one of these products documents something the table marks with a cross, the table is wrong and we would rather be told.
URL: [Email MCP servers compared](https://mailbox-mcp.com/best-email-mcp-servers/#what-does-a-cross-mean-in-the-comparison)

Q: Is Mailbox MCP the cheapest email MCP server?
A: No. MailMCP advertises Pro from 1.99 euros a month and AnyMailMCP from 4.99 euros a month, and both are cheaper per mailbox than we are. If price is the deciding factor, that is a real answer and you should take it. What the annual charge here buys is the capability column above: Microsoft 365 through Microsoft's own sign-in, Google and Microsoft calendars rather than CalDAV alone, attachments that never cross the conversation, and delivery checking after a send. Every one of those is in the table so you can decide whether they are worth the difference rather than taking our word for it.
URL: [Email MCP servers compared](https://mailbox-mcp.com/best-email-mcp-servers/#is-mailbox-mcp-the-cheapest-email-mcp-server)

Q: Does anything here beat Mailbox MCP?
A: On price, yes, and on one capability. MCP Emails connects Gmail through Google's own OAuth sign-in, and Mailbox MCP does not: a Gmail mailbox here is connected with an app password you create in your own Google Account. An app password is independently revocable and does not disturb your Google password, so it is a reasonable arrangement rather than a broken one, but a Google sign-in is the better mechanism and they have it where we do not. It is marked against us in the table above for that reason.
URL: [Email MCP servers compared](https://mailbox-mcp.com/best-email-mcp-servers/#does-anything-here-beat-mailbox-mcp)

Q: How is this comparison kept accurate?
A: Every competitor cell comes from that vendor's own published pages, read on the date printed above the table and linked at the foot of it. Our own column is drawn from the same tool catalogue that generates the tools page here, which a build check compares against the running server, so our cells cannot quietly claim something the software does not do. Comparison tables age faster than anything else on a website, so this one carries a read date rather than pretending to be permanent, and it is rechecked when a competitor ships something or a reader tells us a cell is wrong.
URL: [Email MCP servers compared](https://mailbox-mcp.com/best-email-mcp-servers/#how-is-this-comparison-kept-accurate)

[The developer and reviewer offer]

Q: Do I need a large audience?
A: No, and follower count is not what the decision turns on. A developer with two thousand readers who genuinely care about MCP is a better fit here than an account with a hundred thousand that never covers developer tools. The form asks for one rough audience band for context and then asks for two to five links to things you have already published, which is the part that actually gets read.
URL: [The developer and reviewer offer](https://mailbox-mcp.com/reviewer-offer/#do-i-need-a-large-audience)

Q: Do you require a positive review?
A: No. It is not a condition of the access, it is not implied, and there is nothing we can do about your verdict after the fact: the year runs for twelve months whatever you write. A three-star review from somebody who genuinely pushed the product is worth more to us than five stars from somebody who sent one email, because the thing we are short of is real testing rather than praise.
URL: [The developer and reviewer offer](https://mailbox-mcp.com/reviewer-offer/#do-you-require-a-positive-review)

Q: Will you want to see it before I publish?
A: No. We do not ask for a preview, we do not ask for approval, and we will not ask you to change or soften a criticism. If we spot a plain factual error, something we can point at in the documentation, we may tell you. What you conclude from the facts is yours.
URL: [The developer and reviewer offer](https://mailbox-mcp.com/reviewer-offer/#will-you-want-to-see-it-before-i)

Q: Why is complimentary access necessary at all?
A: Because the free tier is 5 MCP calls a day, which is enough to see that the thing connects and nowhere near enough to test it. One conversation that lists a mailbox, opens three messages and drafts a reply has spent the day. Without Pro, a reviewer would be writing about a product they never got to use, and the review would be worth less to their readers than to us.
URL: [The developer and reviewer offer](https://mailbox-mcp.com/reviewer-offer/#why-is-complimentary-access-necessary-at-all)

Q: Do I have to disclose that the access was free?
A: Yes, and it is the one thing we ask for. Say plainly in the piece that complimentary access was provided for review. That is a requirement of the UK CAP Code and of the equivalent rules in most other places, so it protects you rather than us, and a review that hides it is worth less to everybody including your readers.
URL: [The developer and reviewer offer](https://mailbox-mcp.com/reviewer-offer/#do-i-have-to-disclose-that-the-access)

Q: What counts as a review?
A: Anything public and substantial: a written review, a technical deep dive, a comparison, a tutorial that reaches real conclusions, a video, a newsletter piece, a podcast segment, or a thread with actual findings in it. A one-line mention in a roundup is not really a test, and neither is a listing with an affiliate link. What we are looking for is evidence that somebody used the thing.
URL: [The developer and reviewer offer](https://mailbox-mcp.com/reviewer-offer/#what-counts-as-a-review)

Q: Can I compare it with other products?
A: Please do. A comparison against the other email MCP servers is more useful to a reader than anything written about this one alone, and we publish our own comparison with every cell sourced and dated, so you have somewhere to check our claims and somewhere to disagree with them.
URL: [The developer and reviewer offer](https://mailbox-mcp.com/reviewer-offer/#can-i-compare-it-with-other-products)

Q: Is everybody who applies accepted?
A: No. Places are limited and each application is read individually, so a good one can still be turned down. If yours is, we will tell you and we will not give a reason, because a stated reason for a discretionary place invites an argument about it. You are welcome to apply again later.
URL: [The developer and reviewer offer](https://mailbox-mcp.com/reviewer-offer/#is-everybody-who-applies-accepted)

Q: What happens when the year ends?
A: It goes back to the free tier on its own. There is no card on file, no invoice, nothing renews and there is nothing to cancel. If you want to carry on after that, Pro is bought per mailbox at the price on the pricing page like anybody else.
URL: [The developer and reviewer offer](https://mailbox-mcp.com/reviewer-offer/#what-happens-when-the-year-ends)

Q: Should I create an account before I apply?
A: You can do either, and it makes no difference to whether you are accepted. It makes one difference afterwards: an approval is held against your email address rather than against an account, so if you have already signed up with that address the Pro year is running by the time you read our reply, and if you have not it starts the moment you sign up and confirm it. Use the same address either way.
URL: [The developer and reviewer offer](https://mailbox-mcp.com/reviewer-offer/#should-i-create-an-account-before-i-apply)

[Guide: What an email MCP server is]

Q: What is an MCP server?
A: An MCP server is a program that offers an AI client a list of named tools it can call, using the Model Context Protocol. It is not a chatbot and it has no model in it. It publishes the tools; the AI decides when to use one.
URL: [What an email MCP server is](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/what-is-an-email-mcp-server/#what-is-an-mcp-server)

Q: What can an AI actually do with my email?
A: With an email MCP server, exactly what its tool list says and nothing else. Ours registers twenty-eight tools covering reading, searching, sending, replying, forwarding, filing, flagging, choosing which of your addresses to send as, and checking whether what you sent actually arrived. There is nothing off that list it can quietly do, because a tool that is not registered cannot be called.
URL: [What an email MCP server is](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/what-is-an-email-mcp-server/#what-can-an-ai-actually-do-with-my)

Q: Is this a plugin, an app, or something else?
A: None of those. It is a server your AI client talks to over the network. Nothing is installed on your machine and nothing is added to your mailbox: no rule, no forwarding address, no app sitting in your Google or Microsoft account doing things while you sleep.
URL: [What an email MCP server is](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/what-is-an-email-mcp-server/#is-this-a-plugin-an-app-or-something)

Q: Does the AI company get a copy of my email?
A: Whatever passes through a tool call is in the conversation, so your AI client sees the messages you ask it to read, the same way it sees anything else you paste into it. What it does with that is governed by your agreement with them, not with us. We do not copy your messages into a database, because there is no database in the server.
URL: [What an email MCP server is](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/what-is-an-email-mcp-server/#does-the-ai-company-get-a-copy-of)

Q: Is an MCP server the same as a plugin?
A: It is close enough for a first explanation and wrong in one way that matters. A plugin usually runs inside the host application. An MCP server runs outside it, speaks a documented protocol, and can be used by any client that speaks the same protocol, so one server serves Claude, Cursor and anything else without being rewritten.
URL: [What an email MCP server is](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/what-is-an-email-mcp-server/#is-an-mcp-server-the-same-as-a)

Q: Do I need to be able to program to use one?
A: No. Setting up a remote MCP server is pasting a URL into your client's settings. The protocol detail matters to whoever builds the server, which is why this guide explains it rather than assuming it.
URL: [What an email MCP server is](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/what-is-an-email-mcp-server/#do-i-need-to-be-able-to-program)

[Guide: Remote and local MCP servers]

Q: What is the difference between a remote and a local MCP server?
A: A local server is a program on your own machine that your AI client launches as a subprocess and talks to over its standard input and output. A remote server is a URL your client calls over HTTPS. Nothing else about the protocol changes: the same tools, the same calls, the same results.
URL: [Remote and local MCP servers](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/remote-vs-local-mcp-servers/#what-is-the-difference-between-a-remote-and)

Q: Do I have to install anything?
A: Not for a remote server. You paste a URL into your client's settings and sign in. A local server is the opposite: you install it, you keep it updated, and it only works while that machine is on.
URL: [Remote and local MCP servers](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/remote-vs-local-mcp-servers/#do-i-have-to-install-anything)

Q: My client only supports local servers. What now?
A: Use a bridge. mcp-remote is a small program your client launches locally which then talks to the remote server on its behalf, so a stdio-only client gets a remote server without either side changing. Its own README describes it as connecting "an MCP Client that only supports local (stdio) servers to a Remote MCP Server, with auth support".
URL: [Remote and local MCP servers](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/remote-vs-local-mcp-servers/#my-client-only-supports-local-servers-what-now)

Q: Is a local MCP server more private than a remote one?
A: For some servers, genuinely yes: a local filesystem server never sends your files anywhere. For mail it is a weaker argument than it looks, because a local mail server still opens an authenticated connection to Gmail or Microsoft and your messages still cross the internet. What changes is who holds the credential, not whether the mail travels.
URL: [Remote and local MCP servers](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/remote-vs-local-mcp-servers/#is-a-local-mcp-server-more-private-than)

Q: Does a remote server work when my laptop is closed?
A: The server does. Whether anything happens depends on your client, because nothing calls a tool unless a client asks it to. A remote server is available at three in the morning; it is not doing anything at three in the morning.
URL: [Remote and local MCP servers](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/remote-vs-local-mcp-servers/#does-a-remote-server-work-when-my-laptop)

Q: Why do some setup guides show a URL ending in /sse?
A: Because they were written against an older revision. HTTP+SSE was the 2024-11-05 transport and has been deprecated since 2025-03-26. The current arrangement is a single endpoint, commonly /mcp, that accepts POST and may answer with an SSE stream scoped to that one request. Some tools and their documentation still show /sse.
URL: [Remote and local MCP servers](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/remote-vs-local-mcp-servers/#why-do-some-setup-guides-show-a-url)

[Guide: Triaging a full inbox]

Q: How do I use AI to clear a backlog of email?
A: In four passes, and the order is the whole trick: survey everything without touching it, decide your categories, act in batches from the most reversible action to the least, then check the result in your own mail client. Most attempts fail because they interleave reading and acting instead.
URL: [Triaging a full inbox](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/ai-email-triage/#how-do-i-use-ai-to-clear-a)

Q: Will it mark everything as read?
A: No. Reading a message through Mailbox MCP does not mark it read. The engine fetches message source with IMAP's BODY.PEEK, which is the fetch that explicitly does not set the Seen flag. Marking read is a separate tool, mark_read, and it only runs when you ask for it.
URL: [Triaging a full inbox](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/ai-email-triage/#will-it-mark-everything-as-read)

Q: How do I stop it acting on the wrong messages?
A: By deciding the categories yourself and acting in batches you can inspect. Ask for the plan before the action: a numbered list of what it intends to do, which you approve or correct, and only then the doing. It is slower on the first pass and much faster on every one after it.
URL: [Triaging a full inbox](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/ai-email-triage/#how-do-i-stop-it-acting-on-the)

Q: Does the AI read every message in my inbox to triage it?
A: Not unless you ask it to. list_emails returns summaries: sender, subject, date, flags. Bodies come only from read_email, one message at a time. So a survey of two hundred messages does not put two hundred message bodies into your conversation, which matters for privacy and for how long the pass takes.
URL: [Triaging a full inbox](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/ai-email-triage/#does-the-ai-read-every-message-in-my)

Q: Can I undo a triage pass that went wrong?
A: Mostly. Flags and read state flip back with one instruction. Moves reverse if you know where things came from, which is why the method asks for the plan in writing before the action. Deletes go to Trash rather than being erased, so they are recoverable until Trash is emptied, but that is a race against your provider's retention rather than a real undo.
URL: [Triaging a full inbox](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/ai-email-triage/#can-i-undo-a-triage-pass-that-went)

Q: Is this actually faster than doing it by hand?
A: For a backlog, clearly. For a daily inbox of twenty messages, honestly no: the survey and approval passes cost more attention than reading twenty subject lines. The method earns its keep on volume and on recurring patterns, not on a normal Tuesday.
URL: [Triaging a full inbox](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/ai-email-triage/#is-this-actually-faster-than-doing-it-by)

[Guide: Writing replies with an AI]

Q: Can an AI reply to my emails for me?
A: Yes, and the useful question is whether it sends them or drafts them. Drafting and sending are separate tools, so "write it but do not send" is a different call rather than a promise being kept. Start with drafts, read a dozen, and move to sending only for the categories where you stopped changing anything.
URL: [Writing replies with an AI](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/ai-email-replies/#can-an-ai-reply-to-my-emails-for)

Q: Will the reply thread properly in Outlook and Gmail?
A: Yes. Replies carry In-Reply-To and References, which are the headers mail clients use to build a conversation, and it was verified in Outlook rather than assumed from the API response. Without them a reply arrives as a new message beside the thread it belongs to, which is the single most common failure in tools that write mail.
URL: [Writing replies with an AI](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/ai-email-replies/#will-the-reply-thread-properly-in-outlook-and)

Q: How do I stop it sounding like a robot?
A: By briefing it on constraints rather than on tone. "Two sentences, no greeting, answer the question and stop" produces something that sounds like a person; "be friendly and professional" produces the LinkedIn voice everybody recognises. Give it three of your own past replies and it will match them better than any adjective.
URL: [Writing replies with an AI](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/ai-email-replies/#how-do-i-stop-it-sounding-like-a)

Q: Will the reply quote the original message?
A: Yes, below the reply, in the ordinary way. That is the convention every mail client expects and it is what makes a thread readable to somebody who was not copied on the earlier messages.
URL: [Writing replies with an AI](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/ai-email-replies/#will-the-reply-quote-the-original-message)

Q: Does a sent reply appear in my Sent Items?
A: Once. That was measured rather than assumed: the Sent Items delta per engine send is exactly one message, with the Message-ID matched. Two copies is a common failure when a tool sends over SMTP and then also files a copy itself, and it is worth checking on any tool you try.
URL: [Writing replies with an AI](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/ai-email-replies/#does-a-sent-reply-appear-in-my-sent)

Q: Can it reply from an alias rather than my main address?
A: It sends from the connected address. One connection is one mailbox, so if the alias is a separate mailbox it is a separate connection, and if it is an alias on the same mailbox your provider decides what appears in the From line.
URL: [Writing replies with an AI](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/ai-email-replies/#can-it-reply-from-an-alias-rather-than)

[Guide: Searching a mailbox with an AI]

Q: How do I find an old email I can barely remember?
A: By describing what you remember instead of guessing the words. Tell it the shape of the thing: roughly when, roughly who, what it was about, what was attached. It turns that into several different literal searches, runs them, and reads the summaries back. You are outsourcing the guessing, which is the part you are bad at and it is not.
URL: [Searching a mailbox with an AI](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/search-a-mailbox-with-ai/#how-do-i-find-an-old-email-i)

Q: Why does searching my mailbox miss things?
A: Because mailbox search matches strings, not meaning. There is no stemming, no synonyms and no ranking: a search for "invoice" does not find a message that says "quotation", and a search for "roof" does not find one about guttering. Your memory stores the meaning and the search box wants the exact characters, and nothing bridges that gap on its own.
URL: [Searching a mailbox with an AI](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/search-a-mailbox-with-ai/#why-does-searching-my-mailbox-miss-things)

Q: Can an AI search across folders?
A: Yes, and up to twenty-five folders in a single call. That changed on 27 August 2026; before it, four folders meant four calls. Naming the likely folder first is still the better habit, because results are capped, so a search spread across everything can come back full of the wrong folder. Ask for Inbox, then Archive, then Sent, in that order.
URL: [Searching a mailbox with an AI](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/search-a-mailbox-with-ai/#can-an-ai-search-across-folders)

Q: How big a mailbox can it work through?
A: The test mailbox holds 26,930 messages across 6.63 GB and was read in a single session over IMAP. Size is not the limiting factor; the daily call limit is, because each search is one call however many folders it covers.
URL: [Searching a mailbox with an AI](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/search-a-mailbox-with-ai/#how-big-a-mailbox-can-it-work-through)

Q: Can it search inside attachments?
A: No. Search covers headers and message bodies. A PDF attached to a message is not indexed, so a message is findable by its covering text and not by what the document says. If you need the contents of attachments searchable, you need a document system rather than a mailbox.
URL: [Searching a mailbox with an AI](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/search-a-mailbox-with-ai/#can-it-search-inside-attachments)

Q: Does searching mark anything as read?
A: No. Search returns summaries in the same shape a listing does, so nothing is opened. Even reading a result in full does not mark it read, because that is a separate action.
URL: [Searching a mailbox with an AI](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/search-a-mailbox-with-ai/#does-searching-mark-anything-as-read)

[Guide: Scheduling with an AI]

Q: Can an AI book meetings in my calendar?
A: Yes, once a calendar is connected. On a Microsoft 365 mailbox whose owner approved calendar access it can block time in your own diary, invite people to a meeting with an online link, reschedule one and tell everybody, cancel one with a message, and answer an invitation you have been sent. A Google calendar gets the reading, the free/busy, the booking, the meetings and the answering, on whatever the customer left ticked at the consent screen. Any other calendar gets the same surface as far as its CalDAV server supports it, which is asked when the calendar connects rather than assumed. Every tool that will email somebody says so before it runs, and your AI client stops to ask. A mailbox with no calendar connected gets none of these: it is handed no calendar tools at all rather than tools that would refuse.
URL: [Scheduling with an AI](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/ai-calendar-scheduling/#can-an-ai-book-meetings-in-my-calendar)

Q: Will it book a meeting over something I am already doing?
A: Not on the strength of an answer it could not read, which is the failure worth worrying about rather than the obvious one. It reads free/busy for everybody you name, and where somebody cannot be seen - a different organisation, or permission never granted - that person comes back as unknown, never as free. Microsoft reports those one attendee at a time inside an otherwise successful response, so an integration that treats a blank as an empty afternoon looks like it is working right up until the meeting lands in the middle of somebody's day.
URL: [Scheduling with an AI](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/ai-calendar-scheduling/#will-it-book-a-meeting-over-something-i)

Q: Does it work with Google Calendar?
A: Yes, on any mailbox, whoever hosts the mail. It takes a Google sign-in of its own rather than arriving with the mail, because the app password a Gmail mailbox connects with is a mail credential: it opens IMAP and SMTP and nothing else, and Google refuses it on its own CalDAV endpoint too. So it is one button and one consent screen, and the Google account does not have to be the address the mailbox is on. Three things Outlook does have no Google equivalent and are absent rather than offered and refused: declining with a counter-proposal the organiser can accept, forwarding an invitation, and setting an out-of-office. Every other calendar with a CalDAV address works too, on any mailbox: Fastmail, iCloud, Nextcloud and most mail hosts run one.
URL: [Scheduling with an AI](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/ai-calendar-scheduling/#does-it-work-with-google-calendar)

Q: Which calendar tools will send an email to somebody else?
A: Inviting people to a meeting, changing one they are on, cancelling one, forwarding an invitation, and answering an invitation when you choose to tell the organiser. Those all put a real message in somebody's inbox from your address. Blocking time in your own diary sends nothing, and neither does reading, searching or checking availability. The tool that deletes an event refuses outright the moment anybody else is invited, and names the cancel tool instead, so an invitation is never quietly removed from your own calendar while everybody else keeps holding the time.
URL: [Scheduling with an AI](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/ai-calendar-scheduling/#which-calendar-tools-will-send-an-email-to)

Q: Will it change every week of a recurring meeting if I only meant one?
A: Not by guessing, because it is not allowed to guess. A repeating meeting is two things at once, the series and each date it lands on, and Outlook keeps them apart. Changing an event that belongs to a series requires you to say which of the two you meant, and there is no default that quietly picks one. Reading the diary shows a repeating meeting on every date it actually falls on, the way Outlook does, with the id of the series attached to each.
URL: [Scheduling with an AI](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/ai-calendar-scheduling/#will-it-change-every-week-of-a-recurring)

Q: What timezone does it answer in?
A: Your mailbox's own, which is a setting in Microsoft 365 rather than something we choose, and every answer states it rather than leaving you to assume. That is why the calendar permission includes mailbox settings: without your timezone a time cannot be stated correctly, and without your working hours "tomorrow afternoon" cannot be turned into anything. Working hours are also what stop a suggested slot landing at seven in the evening merely because the diary was empty then.
URL: [Scheduling with an AI](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/ai-calendar-scheduling/#what-timezone-does-it-answer-in)

Q: Do calendar calls come out of a separate allowance?
A: No. They are metered exactly like the mail tools, out of the same daily allowance on the same mailbox, and there is nothing extra to buy. Checking when four people are free, booking the meeting and sending the invitations is three calls. Free is 5 calls a day per mailbox and Pro is 1,000, both published ceilings.
URL: [Scheduling with an AI](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/ai-calendar-scheduling/#do-calendar-calls-come-out-of-a-separate)

[Guide: Connecting a calendar]

Q: How do I connect my calendar to an AI assistant?
A: Connect the mailbox first, then connect the diary, because they are separate services and connecting one never connects the other. Which route is yours is decided by where the diary lives rather than by where the mail lives. A Microsoft 365 mailbox is asked for calendar access on the same sign-in as the mail, so there is a tick box and nothing else to find. A Google diary takes a Google sign-in of its own, on any mailbox. Anything else connects with the address of a CalDAV calendar server, which Fastmail, iCloud, Nextcloud and most mail hosts run. The calendar tools then appear on the connector you already set up in your AI client, which does not need changing.
URL: [Connecting a calendar](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/connect-a-calendar/#how-do-i-connect-my-calendar-to-an)

Q: Can I connect Google Calendar?
A: Yes, on any mailbox, whoever hosts the mail. It is a Google sign-in rather than a password you paste, and that is not a hurdle we invented: an app password is a mail credential that opens IMAP and SMTP and nothing else, and Google refuses one on its own CalDAV endpoint too, so there was never an address that would have worked. You press Connect Google Calendar, choose an account, and Google shows what is being asked for before you approve it. It covers the diary and never the mail, the account does not have to match the mailbox address, and you can withdraw it from your Google account at any time.
URL: [Connecting a calendar](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/connect-a-calendar/#can-i-connect-google-calendar)

Q: Where do I find my CalDAV address?
A: In your provider's help pages, usually filed under calendar sharing or CalDAV rather than under anything with the word calendar on its own. Fastmail publishes it as a per-account URL, iCloud uses the same app-specific password as the mail, and Nextcloud shows it on the calendar page behind the settings cog. If your mail is hosted with your domain registrar or web host, the calendar server is normally the same hostname with calendar in front of it. Paste it in and the panel opens the account while you wait: if it opens, you are connected and it tells you what that server turned out to support, and if it does not, nothing is stored and it tells you which of the address and the password was refused.
URL: [Connecting a calendar](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/connect-a-calendar/#where-do-i-find-my-caldav-address)

Q: Do I need a second connector in my AI client?
A: No, and this is the part people expect to be harder than it is. A calendar attaches to a mailbox you have already connected, so the tools appear on the connector that is already in your client. There is nothing to add, nothing to reconfigure and nothing extra to pay. Some clients cache the tool list, so if the new tools do not appear straight away, reconnecting that connector is the usual fix.
URL: [Connecting a calendar](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/connect-a-calendar/#do-i-need-a-second-connector-in-my)

Q: Why do two people with CalDAV calendars get different tools?
A: Because their servers implement different things and we ask rather than assume. RFC 4791 defines a store for calendar entries and says nothing at all about sending an invitation; RFC 6638 added that years later and plenty of servers never followed. A server without it will accept a meeting with people invited, answer that it worked, and tell nobody, which is the worst kind of failure because it is invisible from both ends. So the server is asked what it implements at the moment it connects, and only the tools it answered for are registered.
URL: [Connecting a calendar](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/connect-a-calendar/#why-do-two-people-with-caldav-calendars-get)

Q: Can I connect a calendar that is not on the same account as the mail?
A: Yes on the Google route, where the account you sign in with is whatever you choose and is shown back to you afterwards so a wrong choice is obvious immediately. Yes on the CalDAV route too, since the address and its credentials are given separately from the mail ones. Microsoft 365 is the one case where they are necessarily the same, because the calendar arrives on the mailbox sign-in itself.
URL: [Connecting a calendar](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/connect-a-calendar/#can-i-connect-a-calendar-that-is-not)

Q: What happens to the calendar tools if I disconnect the diary?
A: They go, and the mail carries on untouched. The same is true if a calendar simply stops opening: a diary that will not connect never takes the mailbox down with it, because losing every mail tool over a feature you added as an extra would be the wrong failure. In both cases the tools are absent rather than present and refusing, which is the same answer your client gets for a mailbox that never had a calendar.
URL: [Connecting a calendar](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/connect-a-calendar/#what-happens-to-the-calendar-tools-if-i)

[Guide: Filing mail with an AI]

Q: Can an AI sort my email into folders?
A: Yes, with move_email and create_folder, one message at a time and only when you ask. It is not a rule and it is not automation: nothing runs while you are away, so a folder structure built this way is one you asked for rather than one that appeared.
URL: [Filing mail with an AI](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/ai-email-filing/#can-an-ai-sort-my-email-into-folders)

Q: If it deletes something, is it gone?
A: No. delete_email moves the message to Trash, exactly as clicking Delete in your mail client would. It is recoverable until Trash is emptied, which your provider does on its own schedule, so it is a deadline rather than an undo. No tool here erases mail you have received or sent. The one thing that is removed outright is a draft you have replaced, by update_draft, and that is so a reworked draft does not leave its earlier versions in your bin.
URL: [Filing mail with an AI](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/ai-email-filing/#if-it-deletes-something-is-it-gone)

Q: Will filing change the date or lose my flags?
A: No to both. A move preserves the message's flags and its original date: a read message stays read, a flagged message stays flagged, and the date shown is still the date it was sent rather than the date it was filed. That last one matters, because a filing pass that re-dated everything would destroy the sort order of your archive.
URL: [Filing mail with an AI](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/ai-email-filing/#will-filing-change-the-date-or-lose-my)

Q: Can it create folders as well as use them?
A: Yes, with create_folder, and it applies your server's own hierarchy and naming rules rather than inventing a convention. That is why a folder you asked to be called Clients might arrive as INBOX.Clients on some hosts.
URL: [Filing mail with an AI](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/ai-email-filing/#can-it-create-folders-as-well-as-use)

Q: Why can I not see a folder it says it created?
A: Most likely it exists but is not subscribed. IMAP separates the folders that exist from the folders your client has opted into showing, and many clients list only the subscribed ones. Subscribing to it in your mail client makes it visible and breaks nothing.
URL: [Filing mail with an AI](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/ai-email-filing/#why-can-i-not-see-a-folder-it)

Q: How many calls does a filing pass cost?
A: Roughly one per message moved, plus one per folder created. Filing a hundred messages is on the order of a hundred calls, so the free tier of 5 a day covers trying it out rather than doing it.
URL: [Filing mail with an AI](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/ai-email-filing/#how-many-calls-does-a-filing-pass-cost)

[Guide: Is it safe?]

Q: Is it safe to give an AI access to my email?
A: It depends almost entirely on the connector rather than on the AI. The assistant is one party and the thing holding your mailbox credential is another, and they are usually different companies with different answers. Ask the eight questions on this page of whoever holds the credential, and judge from the answers rather than from the assurance.
URL: [Is it safe?](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/is-it-safe-to-give-ai-your-email/#is-it-safe-to-give-an-ai-access)

Q: Can the AI company read my messages?
A: They see the messages you ask it to read, in the conversation, the same way they see anything else you put in front of it. What they do with that is governed by your agreement with them, not with us. It is a real consideration and it is not one any mail connector can answer for you: read your assistant provider's own terms on training and retention.
URL: [Is it safe?](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/is-it-safe-to-give-ai-your-email/#can-the-ai-company-read-my-messages)

Q: What happens if I change my mind?
A: You revoke it from your own account and it stops working immediately, without needing our cooperation. An app password is revoked in your Google Account, an OAuth grant in your Microsoft account, and an IMAP password by changing it. That is the property worth insisting on: access you can end without asking anyone.
URL: [Is it safe?](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/is-it-safe-to-give-ai-your-email/#what-happens-if-i-change-my-mind)

Q: Is a local MCP server safer than a remote one for mail?
A: Less than it appears. A local mail server keeps the credential on your own disk, which is a genuine advantage, but your messages still travel to Gmail or Microsoft over the same connection either way. What changes is who holds the key, not whether the mail moves.
URL: [Is it safe?](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/is-it-safe-to-give-ai-your-email/#is-a-local-mcp-server-safer-than-a)

Q: Could it send email as me without my asking?
A: A tool call happens when a client asks for one, and a client asks when you do. There is no scheduler, no rule and no background process, so nothing sends while you are away. That is a design property rather than a promise, and it is why there is no "automation" feature here.
URL: [Is it safe?](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/is-it-safe-to-give-ai-your-email/#could-it-send-email-as-me-without-my)

Q: What happens to my mail if you go out of business?
A: Nothing. Your mail is in your mailbox with your provider, where it has always been, and there is no copy of it anywhere else. Stopping using this changes nothing about your mail, which is the practical benefit of a connector that does not keep anything.
URL: [Is it safe?](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/is-it-safe-to-give-ai-your-email/#what-happens-to-my-mail-if-you-go)

[Guide: Gmail app passwords missing]

Q: Why can I not create an app password?
A: Almost always because of WHICH second factor you have, not whether you have one. Google requires 2-Step Verification to create an app password, and an account whose only second step is a security key or a passkey does not unlock the option even though the page reports 2-Step Verification as on. Adding a phone or an authenticator app fixes it in about two minutes.
URL: [Gmail app passwords missing](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/gmail-app-password-not-available/#why-can-i-not-create-an-app-password)

Q: What does "the setting that you are looking for is not available for your account" mean?
A: It is Google telling you the app passwords page is not available for the account you are signed in as. It is not a fault and nothing is broken. The usual cause is the second-factor one above; the other three causes are a work or school account whose administrator has turned it off, an account enrolled in the Advanced Protection Programme, and being signed in to the wrong account.
URL: [Gmail app passwords missing](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/gmail-app-password-not-available/#what-does-the-setting-that-you-are-looking)

Q: Do passkeys count as 2-Step Verification?
A: Not on their own, in our testing. An account with a passkey set up and nothing else showed 2-Step Verification as on and still would not offer app passwords. Google's own help page documents the equivalent case for security keys and does not mention passkeys, so treat this one as our observation rather than as Google's published position.
URL: [Gmail app passwords missing](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/gmail-app-password-not-available/#do-passkeys-count-as-2-step-verification)

Q: Is turning on a phone code less secure than my passkey?
A: For signing in, a passkey is stronger and you should keep it. Adding a phone or an authenticator app does not remove it: you end up with both, and Google will keep using the strongest method available for ordinary sign-ins. What the extra method unlocks is the app passwords page.
URL: [Gmail app passwords missing](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/gmail-app-password-not-available/#is-turning-on-a-phone-code-less-secure)

Q: Why does Google make app passwords conditional at all?
A: An app password bypasses your second step by design, which is the whole point of it and also its weakness. Requiring a qualifying second factor first means the account is at least protected everywhere else. It is a defensible position even when it is an inconvenient one.
URL: [Gmail app passwords missing](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/gmail-app-password-not-available/#why-does-google-make-app-passwords-conditional-at)

Q: Can I avoid app passwords entirely?
A: On Gmail, no: an app password is how a mail client connects. On Microsoft 365 the question does not arise, because password access to IMAP was disabled in 2022 and connecting is one Microsoft sign-in instead.
URL: [Gmail app passwords missing](https://mailbox-mcp.com/guides/gmail-app-password-not-available/#can-i-avoid-app-passwords-entirely)