Email Reader

Read, search, and manage emails from your inbox, including downloading attachments and listing folders.

GitHub

mcp_email_reader

Model Context Protocol (MCP) server exposes several mcp tools called search_emails, download_attachment and list_folders. This has been tested on Claude Desktop and LibreChat with Ollama.

Installation

Prerequisites

Windows

  1. Install Claude Desktop (or another MCP-enabled AI tool)

  2. Install Python 3.10 or higher:

    • Download the latest Python installer from python.org
    • Run the installer, checking "Add Python to PATH"
    • Open Command Prompt and verify installation with python --version

  3. Install uv:

    • Open Command Prompt as Administrator
    • Run pip install --user uv
    • Verify installation with uv --version

macOS

  1. Install Claude Desktop (or another MCP-enabled AI tool)

  2. Install Python 3.10 or higher:

    • Using Homebrew: brew install python
    • Verify installation with python3 --version

  3. Install uv:

    • Using Homebrew: brew install uv
    • Alternatively: pip3 install --user uv
    • Verify installation with uv --version

Configuration

Add the following to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "mcp_email_reader": {
            "command": "uvx",
            "args": [
                "--from",
                "git+https://github.com/karateboss/mcp_email_reader@main",
                "mcp_email_reader"
            ],
        "env": {
            "IMAP_SERVER": "<email server>",
            "EMAIL_ACCOUNT": "<user email account>",
            "EMAIL_PASSWORD_ENC": "<encrypted password>"
            "EMAIL_SECRET_KEY": "<secret key used to encypt password>"
        }
    }
}

Note: Clearly, the secret key can be used to decrypt the encrypted password and is therefore a potential security risk - although claude_desktop_config.json is stored locally on your laptop/PC. It has been added to the json file above since it is not possible to add a .env file when using uvx to clone the repo dynamically.

Attribution

This software package implements the ability to read emails into a MCP enabled framework and is developed by karateboss.

Contributing

We welcome contributions to improve these tools. Please submit issues and pull requests through our repository.

Support

For questions and support:

  1. Check our documentation
  2. Submit an issue in our repository

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