LABSCO SUMMARY

IMAP is the point — it works where vendor APIs do not.

A Gmail or FastMail connector is a better fit when you are on Gmail or FastMail. This is for the mailbox that has neither: speak the protocol the server already speaks, and the host does not have to have thought about integrations at all. The cost is the credential model that comes with IMAP — an account password in an environment variable rather than a scoped, revocable token — so prefer an app-specific password where your provider issues them.

What it is

A small server for browsing email over IMAP, built on fastmcp. IMAP is the one protocol nearly every mail server speaks, which makes this the option when the mailbox lives somewhere without a modern API — a self-hosted server, a corporate host, an old provider.

What you get

Browsing access to the mailbox the credentials belong to, over the protocol the server already exposes. Because the connection is plain IMAP rather than a vendor API, the same setup works against any host that speaks it — the only thing that changes between mailboxes is the three configured values.

Requirements

An IMAP account and its password. Three values go in the env block of your client config: IMAP_USER, IMAP_PASSWORD and IMAP_SERVER, the last being the host's DNS name or IP address. Python with uv — the client entry runs the server script with uv run from your checkout, so the repository has to be cloned locally. The project is imap-test (version 0.1.0).

Setup effort

Clone and run — clone the repository, then add the configuration for your client; uv runs the script from your clone, with nothing to build

See installation options

USE CASES

01

Reaching a mailbox that has no API

Point the server at a self-hosted or legacy IMAP host and browse it from the assistant, without waiting for a vendor integration.

02

Bringing mail into a conversation

Let the assistant read what is in the mailbox rather than having you paste messages in one at a time.

03

Keeping mail access local

Run it from your own checkout with credentials that stay in your client config, talking directly to your mail server.

BEFORE YOU INSTALL

What to know first

Requires

uv on PATH
IMAP_USER, IMAP_PASSWORD and IMAP_SERVER in the env block of your client config

Where it runs

The documented client runs the server on your machine.

INSTALLATION

Connect your client

Clone the repository, then add the configuration for your client; uv runs the script from your clone, with nothing to build.

Server setup

TERMINAL

git clone https://github.com/Dr4x14913/imap-mcp

MCP Clients

Any MCP client

ANY MCP CLIENT · JSON

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "imap-mcp": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": [
        "--directory",
        "<YOUR_PATH_TO_IMAP_MCP>",
        "run",
        "server.py"
      ],
      "env": {
        "IMAP_USER": "<YOUR_IMAP_USER>",
        "IMAP_PASSWORD": "<YOUR_IMAP_PASSWORD>",
        "IMAP_SERVER": "server dns or ip"
      }
    }
  }
}

IMAP