Everything your AI can do with your email, and exactly how much you let it.

• "What came in overnight?"

  It lists the folder with the first line or 2 of every message, the quoted history and the signature stripped off. The shortlist is built without opening anything.

• "Find the invoice from the plumber."

  It searches the mailbox itself, as many as 25 folders in one call, matching the words you gave it.

• "Catch me up with the surveyor."

  It reads the whole conversation in one call, oldest first.

• Replies stay in the thread.

  A reply carries the 2 headers a mail client reads to decide where it belongs, In-Reply-To and References. So it nests under the original in Outlook and Gmail as if you'd written it.

• The original shows the reply arrow.

  The message being answered is marked answered, so your own mail client shows the arrow.

• Forwards carry everything.

  A forward brings the original's attachments and inline images, under the forwarded-message block a real mail client produces.

• You're never copied in on your own thread.

  A reply-all leaves out every address on your mailbox.

• Exactly one copy in Sent Items.

  It's filed with the same Message-ID the recipient received. Attachments arrive byte for byte: a real send of a JPEG and a ZIP came out SHA-256 identical at the far end.

• About 5 seconds to send.

  That's to an external domain through Microsoft Graph, and about 10 over SMTP. Both were timed.

• New folders show up in Outlook.

  Folders can be created, renamed, or moved under a different parent with their sub-folders. A folder it creates is subscribed, which is the difference between one that appears in Outlook and one that exists but never shows up.

• Delete means Trash.

  Deleting moves a message to Trash, exactly as your own delete button does, so it's recoverable.

• Archive goes where your Archive button would.

  That's a different place on each service. Microsoft 365 has a folder called Archive, and most IMAP hosts have none until one is created.

• Gmail has no archive folder at all.

  Archiving there means the message leaves the inbox and carries on living in All Mail.

• Reporting spam teaches your filter.

  It's the same move your spam button makes, which is what teaches your mail server's filter to catch the next one.

• A rescued message keeps its date.

  Rescuing a message the filter got wrong returns it to the inbox with the date it originally arrived.

• Microsoft 365.

  Approve calendar access on a Microsoft 365 sign-in, and all 21 calendar tools arrive in full.

• Google Calendar.

  A Google sign-in for Google Calendar, on any mailbox. The calendar tools arrive in the set this route supports.

• A CalDAV server.

  The address of a CalDAV calendar server, which Fastmail, iCloud, Nextcloud and most mail hosts run beside the mail. The tools arrive in the set that server supports.

So a meeting is booked into a slot the AI could actually see, and the invitation goes out in your name only at the level you allow. The scheduling guide covers a week of real bookings.

• Per connection, not per mailbox.

  Claude on your laptop can be Read only while ChatGPT in your browser is Draft and file, on the same mailbox.

• Changed without reconnecting.

  Change either on the mailbox's Connector tab in the control panel. It's obeyed on that client's next call.

• Only Send and delete can send.

  So whether to let Claude send emails at all is the same choice, made per connection.

• Tools above the level aren't even shown.

  A connection below the top level never sees them, so the model is never offered send_email and never spends a turn finding out it can't use it. The tool reference lists every tool under the level that reaches it.

So AI email read-only access, "can I let it read my email but not send anything?", is a setting you make once, per client, rather than a promise the client makes.

• A made-up tool name gets a plain answer.

  A tool no level has ever placed (a typo, or a name the model made up) is answered with there is no tool called that on this connection, with the name quoted back.

• Every refusal is on the Activity tab.

  A refusal by the level or the limit is recorded as a failed call, with Not allowed on this connection: in front of the reason. The note ends (mailbox limit) where the limit was the wall.

So the AI is told, in words it can pass on to you, what it may not do, instead of trying again or telling you something went wrong.

• Filter it, and count it.

  Filter by period, mailbox, tool and outcome. The chips count reads, writes and irreversible calls separately.

• A partial success says so.

  A call that partly succeeded says how far it got, rather than rounding itself up to a success.

• The fact of the call, never the contents.

  No subject, no address, no line of a message, because none of that is stored anywhere.

• Refusals and files, recorded plainly.

  A refused call is recorded as failed, with the reason. A download or an upload is recorded as the message and a file count, never a filename.

Until 12 September 2026, every row was recorded as a success whatever the tool returned. The changelog says so, rather than leaving you to trust the older rows.

• Pro is £2.92 a month, per mailbox.

  That's paid annually at £34.99 + VAT. There's no per-client price: one mailbox on Pro serves however many AI clients you connect to it, each at its own level.

• A free set-up costs nothing.

  Anthropic's help centre says a free Claude plan can add one custom connector, which is one mailbox. So the free tier here and a free AI plan together are a working set-up that costs nothing.

• Routines are on every plan.

  They use calls from the same daily allowance. A Morning brief makes at most 5 a run, which is all of a free mailbox's day, so free is the way to try one. On Pro it's 5 of 1,000, which leaves the rest of the day for everything else you ask.

The pricing page for one person has both figures with what counts as a call. Team Access is the page for putting other people on a mailbox you own.