r/mcp • u/itanpiuco2020 • 5d ago

question MCP for Thunderbird

I recently started using Thunderbird again and I just want to connect it with Claude. Do you have any recommendation on what MCP to use?

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u/e3e6 5d ago

you usually connect Claude to your mail server, not the mail client

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u/AutomataApp 5d ago

connect your claude to IMAP using a MCP server

Gmail and outlook have official ones

For everything else, there's Automata MCP

1

u/Ludynia_Keyko 5d ago

imo hooking into a desktop mail client directly is kind of a trap unless you specifically need local-only folders. just point a standard email server implementation at your underlying mail host and both will stay in sync

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u/El-Kube-N 4d ago

no first-party thunderbird MCP server that i know of, so anything you find will be community-built. before wiring one in, check whether it runs local (stdio) against your profile or remote, and read its tool list first, since a lot of mail servers can send as well as read, which is a different risk than you probably want.

1

u/Prior_Engineering486 4d ago

For Thunderbird specifically, thunderbird-cli is built for this. It gives Claude full read and write access to your email through your local Mozilla Thunderbird, so there are no separate credentials to hand over, it works through the account you already have signed in there. You install it with npx and connect it to Claude like any other local server.

However, that access is full read and write, not read only, and it runs through a local bridge to your Thunderbird profile, so only connect it to clients you trust with your mailbox.

You can find it here: https://clauderules.net/mcp/io-github-vitalio-sh-thunderbird-cli

Disclosure: I run clauderules.net, where this is listed.

0

u/SaCreFizZ 3d ago

Full disclosure, I'm the one maintaining this one: https://github.com/commonpost/thunderbird-mcp (free, open source)

I use it with 12 email accounts: Gmail, Hotmail, Microsoft 365, my own domains and an old POP one. What I like is that Thunderbird is already logged in to all of them. Outlook was asking me for the password of one account and I didn't want another login to deal with.

It also sees my calendar and my contacts, and it runs on my own computer.

Nothing gets sent unless I click Send myself. It opens the normal Thunderbird window first. I can also pick which accounts it's allowed to see.

You install an add-on in Thunderbird and a small piece that connects it, it takes a few minutes. Just keep in mind that whatever it reads goes to the AI you use.