How to connect any IMAP mailbox to ChatGPT and Claude (2026 guide)

Your inbox is where the work actually happens: the invoice you need to chase, the client thread you keep re-reading, the booking confirmation you can never find. Claude and ChatGPT are good at exactly that kind of sifting, yet the moment you point them at your own mailbox, there is nothing to click. This guide explains why, and shows you how to connect any IMAP mailbox to Claude, ChatGPT and other assistants in about a minute.

Why most mailboxes are locked out

AI assistants ship native email connectors for exactly two providers: Gmail and Microsoft 365 (Outlook). Both offer a "Sign in with Google" or "Sign in with Microsoft" pop-up that hands an app a scoped token without ever exposing your password. That token is the only thing a built-in connector knows how to use.

Everyone else is left out. If your address lives at OVH, Gandi, Infomaniak, IONOS, one.com, Zoho, Fastmail, iCloud or a cPanel box at your web host, there is no "Sign in with OVH" button for a third-party app to consume. These providers all speak IMAP, the decades-old standard every mail client already uses, but they do not offer self-serve OAuth for it. So the assistants cannot ship a connector, and the gap is permanent rather than a roadmap item. We told the full story for one provider in Claude can't read your OVH email; the same wall stands in front of almost every hosting-provider mailbox.

What MCP is, in one paragraph

MCP, the Model Context Protocol, is the open standard Claude, ChatGPT, Le Chat, Cursor and others use to talk to outside tools. A hosted MCP server sits between your mailbox and your assistant: you connect your email to it once, and it presents your inbox and calendar to any MCP-capable assistant as a clean set of actions like search, read, draft, send and manage your schedule. anymailmcp.com is that server for IMAP mail, so any assistant that speaks MCP can suddenly work with the mailbox you already own.

The 60-second setup, per client

There is no client ID to register, no API key to generate, no token to paste. The connect step is identical everywhere: your assistant opens our secure page, you enter your email address and password once, and we auto-detect and verify your server settings live against your own provider. Here is where to add the connector in each client.

Claude

Open Settings, then Connectors, and add a custom connector pointing at https://anymailmcp.com/mcp. Click connect, enter your mailbox on our page, and Claude can read your mail from its very next message.

ChatGPT (Developer mode)

Turn on Developer mode in ChatGPT's settings, then add a new connector with the same URL, https://anymailmcp.com/mcp. Approve it, connect your mailbox, and your inbox tools appear in the composer.

Le Chat, Cursor and the rest

Every MCP client follows the same shape. In Le Chat or Cursor, add a custom MCP connector, paste https://anymailmcp.com/mcp, and connect. One URL, one login, done.

Which providers work

If your mailbox speaks IMAP, it works. We keep a step-by-step page for the common ones: OVH, Gandi, Infomaniak, IONOS, one.com, Zoho, Fastmail, Titan, mailbox.org, LWS, and any host running cPanel or Plesk. iCloud Mail works too, including the custom domains you host on iCloud+, using an Apple app-specific password. The one exception worth naming is Proton Mail, which does not expose standard IMAP and only works through Proton's paid desktop Bridge, so a hosted server cannot reach it.

What you can ask once connected

The point is not the plumbing, it is what you stop doing by hand. Once connected, you can ask things like:

• "Summarise every unread email from this week and tell me what needs a reply."
• "Find the invoice from Sofia and draft a short thank-you with the payment confirmed."
• "Did the landlord ever answer my email about the deposit?"
• "Send the signed quote back to the client and flag the thread for Monday."

Your assistant searches, reads and drafts against the live mailbox, so answers reflect what is actually in your inbox right now, not a stale copy.

Is it safe?

The whole product is a trust exercise, so the defaults stay conservative. Your credentials are encrypted with AES-256-GCM, and email content is never stored: every read is a live proxy to your provider, and nothing from your mailbox is copied into a database. You hold the off switch. Disconnecting wipes your credentials instantly, and changing your mailbox password revokes us the same way it would log out any other mail client. Where your provider supports app passwords, like Fastmail, Zoho, mailbox.org or iCloud, the connect page steers you to one, so you hand us a revocable, scoped credential instead of your main password.

What it costs

Nothing to start, and no trial clock. The free tier gives you one mailbox, every tool except sending, a full calendar, and 15 calls a day (45 a week, 150 a month), with no card required. When you need more, Solo is 4.99 € a month excluding VAT and goes unlimited on everything: calls, mailboxes and real sending. A Team plan with unlimited members via domain auto-join is coming soon for organisations.

Your mailbox was never the problem. The missing OAuth button was. Connect your mailbox, free, or compare the free and Solo plans.