Mailbox CLI

CLI-first email management for multi-account IMAP/SMTP with a local sync cache.

Primary interface: the mailbox CLI (Node.js implementation). This repo ships prebuilt platform binaries via npm (no Python required for end users).

Supported Providers

• 163 Mail (mail.163.com / mail.126.com)
• QQ Mail (mail.qq.com)
• Gmail (mail.google.com)
• Outlook/Hotmail
• Custom IMAP servers

Install

npm (recommended)

npm install -g @leeguoo/mailbox-cli
mailbox --help

The npm package ships prebuilt binaries per platform (no Python required).

As an AI Skill (Claude Code / Cursor / etc.)

# Project scope — installs into ./.claude/skills/mailbox (or ./.cursor/skills/...):
npx skills add leeguooooo/Mailbox --skill mailbox

# User scope — installs into ~/.claude/skills/mailbox:
npx skills add leeguooooo/Mailbox --skill mailbox -g

The skill assumes the CLI is on PATH (npm install -g @leeguoo/mailbox-cli). For the biggest speedup also run mailbox daemon install once.

MCP server (Claude Desktop / Code / Cursor)

mailbox mcp config --json   # prints a paste-ready mcpServers entry

From source (development)

pnpm install
pnpm test

# build a local platform binary into mailbox-cli/packages/<platform>/bin/mailbox
pnpm build:binary

Configure accounts

mkdir -p ~/.config/mailbox
cp examples/accounts.example.json ~/.config/mailbox/auth.json

Config locations:

• Credentials: ~/.config/mailbox/auth.json
• Other settings: ~/.config/mailbox/config.toml

Common commands

# CLI help
mailbox --help

# list accounts
mailbox account list --json

# list unread emails (cache by default; --from filters cache-side)
mailbox email list --unread-only --limit 20 --json
mailbox email list --account-id my_account_id --from "newsletter" --json

# show one email (response includes list_unsubscribe when the header is set)
mailbox email show 123456 --account-id my_account_id --json

# mark read (use --dry-run to validate first)
mailbox email mark 123456 --read --account-id my_account_id --folder INBOX --dry-run --json
mailbox email mark 123456 --read --account-id my_account_id --folder INBOX --confirm --json

# delete
mailbox email delete 123456 --account-id my_account_id --folder INBOX --confirm --json

# bulk mutate by sender or subject (no UID list needed)
mailbox email mark --from "[email protected]" --read --confirm --account-id my_account_id --json
mailbox email delete --from "newsletter" --account-id my_account_id --json    # dry-run preview
mailbox email delete --subject "[ad]" --account-id my_account_id --confirm --json

Cache + sync

• Cache DB default: ~/.local/share/mailbox/email_sync.db
• Listing uses cache by default where possible. Add --live to force IMAP.

mailbox sync status --json
mailbox sync force --json
mailbox sync init
mailbox sync daemon

AI usage guide

If you're integrating this CLI into an AI agent, start here:

• docs/AI_SKILL_MAILBOX_CLI.md

OpenClaw integration

This repo includes an OpenClaw skill at skills/mailbox/SKILL.md.

OpenClaw loads skills from:

• <workspace>/skills
• ~/.openclaw/skills

Quick link helper (symlink into ~/.openclaw/skills):

./scripts/link_openclaw_skill.sh

Force replace an existing link:

./scripts/link_openclaw_skill.sh --force

To use this repo without copying files, add the repo skills directory to skills.load.extraDirs in ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json:

{
  "skills": {
    "load": {
      "extraDirs": [
        "/path/to/mcp-email-service/skills"
      ]
    }
  }
}

OpenClaw handles channel delivery and scheduling; mailbox returns structured JSON outputs and optional text summaries.

Verify OpenClaw picked up the skill:

openclaw skills list --eligible
openclaw skills check

Contract

• docs/CLI_JSON_CONTRACT.md