Private Email MCP connects your AI assistant (such as Claude) to your Private Email mailbox. Through it, the assistant can list your folders, list, search and read your emails, mark them read or as favorites, move them between folders or to Trash, and send, reply to and forward emails from your own address — you ask in plain language, and the assistant calls the right tools.

Getting started

You need a Private Email mailbox. Private Email MCP is available at https://mcp.privateemail.com/mcp.

How you connect depends on your AI assistant:

• Claude — in Claude (web and desktop), open Settings, choose Connectors, add a custom connector, and point it at https://mcp.privateemail.com/mcp. In Claude Code, run claude mcp add --transport http privateemail https://mcp.privateemail.com/mcp, then sign in through /mcp. Claude is the client we have verified Private Email MCP to work with.

• Other MCP clients — add a remote MCP server and point it at https://mcp.privateemail.com/mcp. Other clients may work, but we haven't verified them yet.

When you connect, you'll be asked to sign in with your Private Email address and approve the assistant's access to your mailbox. The assistant then acts only on that mailbox, and only through the tools below.

What the assistant can and cannot do

• Email content is untrusted. Subjects, senders, previews and bodies are written by other people. Private Email MCP tells the assistant to treat them as data, not as instructions, but an email can still try to steer it: review what the assistant proposes before you approve a change.

• Sent email is real email. email_send, email_reply and email_forward send from your own Private Email address, and a sent email cannot be called back. The assistant should send only what you asked for: review the recipients and the text before you approve a send.

• Plain text only. You write the text of a new email, reply or forward as plain text. You cannot upload attachments or save drafts; a forward can include the attachments of the email it forwards.

• Nothing is deleted permanently. Deleting an email moves it to your Trash folder, from where you can move it back. No tool empties Trash or erases a message.

Read-only access

When you connect, you choose what the assistant may do with your mailbox:

• Read and write — the assistant can use every tool in this reference, including the ones that mark, move, delete and send emails.

• Read only — the assistant can list your folders, list and search your emails and open them (folder_list, email_list, email_search, email_read). It cannot mark emails, move or delete them, or send, reply to or forward emails. Opening an email leaves it unread.

With read-only access, the assistant does not see the tools it is not allowed to use. If you ask it to do something it cannot do, it will tell you to reconnect Private Email and allow write operations.

To change what the assistant may do, disconnect Private Email in your AI assistant and connect it again, then choose the access you want on the approval screen.

Terms and privacy

The agreements and policies that apply to Private Email MCP:

• Terms of Service

• Privacy Policy

If you need help, contact our support.

Tools at a glance

Access: Read only retrieves information. Write changes your mailbox in a way you can change back. Sensitive write sends an email from your address, which cannot be undone.

How emails are identified

Every email in a list or search result carries folderFullName and uid. The other tools take these two values as folder and uid. A uid is only valid inside its folder and changes when the email is moved, so after a move the assistant uses the new uid the move returned, or lists the folder again.

The folder Virtual/All covers every folder, including Trash, Spam, Drafts and Sent. It is accepted by email_list and email_search only; each result still carries the real folder of the email.

Common workflows

Catch up on unread mail

1. email_search with unreadOnly: true finds the unread emails across all folders.

2. email_read opens the ones you ask about; reading marks them as read.

Tidy up a folder

1. folder_list shows the folders and their exact names.

2. email_list lists the emails of the folder.

3. email_move files an email into another folder, or email_delete moves it to Trash.

Answer an email

1. email_search or email_list finds the email.

2. email_read shows it to you, so you can decide what to answer.

3. email_reply sends your answer, or email_forward passes the email on to someone else.

Tool reference

Folders

folder_list — List folders

Access: Read.

Lists the folders of the mailbox as a flat list, nested folders included. Use a folder's fullName as the folder argument of the other tools.

This tool takes no parameters.

{
  "folders": [
    { "fullName": "INBOX", "name": "INBOX", "parentFullName": "", "unread": 3, "total": 120, "role": "inbox" },
    { "fullName": "INBOX/Receipts", "name": "Receipts", "parentFullName": "INBOX", "unread": 0, "total": 14, "role": null }
  ]
}

role is inbox, sent, drafts, trash, junk or archive when the folder has one, otherwise null. Nested folders are named with their parent, for example INBOX/Receipts.

Emails

email_list — List emails

Access: Read.

Lists the emails of one folder, newest first, one page at a time.

{
  "items": [
    {
      "folderFullName": "INBOX",
      "uid": 4821,
      "from": [{ "name": "Jane Doe", "address": "jane@example.com" }],
      "to": [{ "name": null, "address": "you@yourdomain.com" }],
      "subject": "Invoice for October",
      "date": "2026-10-14T09:12:00Z",
      "previewText": "Hi, please find the invoice attached…",
      "isRead": false,
      "isFavorite": false,
      "isAnswered": false,
      "hasAttachments": true,
      "importance": "Normal",
      "idempotencyKey": null
    }
  ],
  "total": 120,
  "page": 0,
  "count": 25,
  "hasMore": true
}

idempotencyKey is set on the copy Private Email saved of an email you sent: in Sent, or in Drafts when sending failed. It equals the idempotencyKey the sending tool returned, so the assistant can find the email it just sent in your Sent folder. It is null on every other email. Only Sent and Drafts are trusted for it, because an incoming email can carry any value.

email_search — Search emails

Access: Read.

Searches the emails of a folder by text and filters, one page at a time. Without a folder, it searches Virtual/All.

The result has the same shape as email_list, idempotencyKey included.

email_read — Read email

Access: Write — reading marks the email as read. With read-only access the tool only reads: the email stays unread and markedRead is false.

Reads one email: headers, attachment details and the body. The body is the cleaned-up HTML version when the email has one (bodyFormathtml), otherwise its plain text (bodyFormattext), cut at 100,000 characters (bodyTruncated). Attachments are listed, not downloaded.

{
  "message": {
    "folderFullName": "INBOX",
    "uid": 4821,
    "messageId": "<abc123@example.com>",
    "from": [{ "name": "Jane Doe", "address": "jane@example.com" }],
    "to": [{ "name": null, "address": "you@yourdomain.com" }],
    "cc": [],
    "subject": "Invoice for October",
    "date": "2026-10-14T09:12:00Z",
    "body": "<p>Hi, please find the invoice attached.</p>",
    "bodyFormat": "html",
    "bodyTruncated": false,
    "attachments": [{ "name": "invoice.pdf", "contentType": "application/pdf", "size": 48213 }],
    "importance": "Normal",
    "idempotencyKey": null
  },
  "markedRead": true
}

markedRead is false when the email was returned but marking it as read failed. idempotencyKey works as in email_list.

email_mark_read — Mark email read or unread

Access: Write.

{ "folderFullName": "INBOX", "uid": 4821, "isRead": true }

Setting the same state twice is harmless. A uid that is not in the folder is not reported as an error, so the assistant takes uids from a fresh list.

email_mark_favorite — Mark email as favorite

Access: Write.

{ "folderFullName": "INBOX", "uid": 4821, "isFavorite": true }

email_move — Move email

Access: Write.

Moves one email to another folder of the same mailbox. Moving it to the folder it is already in is refused.

{ "previousFolderFullName": "INBOX", "folderFullName": "INBOX/Receipts", "uid": 77 }

The email gets a new uid in the destination folder. uid is null when the server did not report it; list the destination folder to find the email. A move is never retried automatically: if it could not be confirmed, the assistant lists the folders before trying again.

email_delete — Delete email

Access: Write.

Moves one email to the Trash folder. The email is not erased and can be moved back; an email that is already in Trash is refused, because the only remaining step would be a permanent delete, which Private Email MCP never does.

{ "previousFolderFullName": "INBOX", "folderFullName": "Trash", "uid": 912 }

Sending

These tools send real email from your own Private Email address; the sender cannot be changed. The result only says that the mail server accepted the email for delivery, not that it was delivered.

All three share these limits:

• Recipients are bare email addresses such as alice@example.com, without display names, at most 50 in total. The same address given twice counts once.

• The text (body) is plain text of at most 200,000 characters. Line breaks are kept; it is not sent as HTML.

• No attachments can be uploaded and no draft is saved.

• Together they can send to at most 500 recipients per hour, counted over the last 60 minutes: each recipient in To, Cc and Bcc counts once, after duplicates are removed. An email that would go over that is not sent at all (application.request.tooManyRequests).

Each result carries an idempotencyKey that identifies the send. The copy saved to your Sent folder carries the same idempotencyKey in email_list, email_search and email_read, so the assistant can confirm that the email is there. Saving the copy can take a few seconds after the result.

A send is never repeated blindly. If the mail server did not confirm it (infrastructure.mailcore.outcome-unknown), the email may have been sent anyway: the assistant looks for it in your Sent folder before sending it again.

email_send — Send email

Access: Sensitive write — sends a real email, which cannot be undone.

Sends a new email.

{ "accepted": true, "idempotencyKey": "00000000-0000-4000-8000-000000000001" }

To, Cc and Bcc together hold at most 50 addresses.

email_reply — Reply to email

Access: Sensitive write — sends a real email, which cannot be undone.

Replies to one email. The subject gets a Re: prefix (never twice), the reply is threaded under the email, and the email is quoted below your text with a header naming its sender. A very long email is quoted up to 100,000 characters and marked as truncated. Replying does not mark the email as read.

{ "accepted": true, "idempotencyKey": "00000000-0000-4000-8000-000000000001" }

The reply goes to the email's Reply-To address; when there is none, or it names only you, to its sender; when that is you too, as for an email in your Sent folder, to its original To recipients. Your own address is always left out. With replyAll, the other To and Cc recipients of the email are added; your main address is left out, but your aliases are not, so a copy may reach you through one of them. The reply goes to at most 50 recipients.

email_forward — Forward email

Access: Sensitive write — sends a real email, which cannot be undone.

Forwards one email to new recipients. The subject gets a Fwd: prefix (never twice), and the email is quoted below your text with a header naming its sender, up to 100,000 characters. A forward starts a new conversation. Forwarding does not mark the email as read.

{ "accepted": true, "idempotencyKey": "00000000-0000-4000-8000-000000000001" }

Usage limits

Each Private Email user has two budgets, counted over a sliding window:

• Sending (email_send, email_reply and email_forward together): at most 500 recipients per hour. Every recipient of an email counts once, so an email to three people uses three. An email over the budget sends nothing, but the recipients that still fitted are used up.

• Everything else (folder_list, email_list, email_search, email_read, email_mark_read, email_mark_favorite, email_move and email_delete together): at most 300 calls per minute, 5,000 per hour and 25,000 per day. A call must fit all three.

Outside sending, each call counts once. A call over a budget does nothing and answers application.request.tooManyRequests, which is not retryable right away; the assistant slows down and tries again later.

Errors

When a tool fails, the assistant receives an error with a code, a detail sentence and retryable, which says whether trying again later can help. The errors you may see: