MCP Email Server: Add Email to Claude, Cursor, Windsurf and Any MCP Client

BotsInbox · 2026-11-01 · All articles

Short answer: An MCP email server exposes email as tools — create inbox, list messages, read message, search — that any MCP-compatible agent can call. BotsInbox runs a hosted one at https://mcp.botsinbox.com/mcp. Add it to your MCP client with a Bearer API key and your agent owns a real email inbox: it can receive verification codes (extracted automatically), notifications and replies, with no human mailbox involved.

Why email belongs in MCP

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is how agents get tools in a standard way. Email is one of the most useful tools an agent can have — it is the internet's identity and notification layer — yet most agents cannot receive it. An MCP email server closes that gap the same way MCP database or browser servers close theirs: capabilities as tools, usable by every client that speaks the protocol.

The tools you get

list_inboxes — the account's inboxes
create_inbox — a new @botsinbox.com address (free plan: up to 5 per account)
list_messages — recent mail, with extracted_code for verification codes
get_message — full body, reply history stripped, attachments listed
search_messages — full-text search across all inboxes

Connecting, by client

All remote-MCP clients take the same two facts: the server URL and the Authorization header. Where they differ is where the config lives:

Claude Desktop — Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector, URL https://mcp.botsinbox.com/mcp. Full walkthrough: Claude email setup guide.
Claude Code — claude mcp add --transport http botsinbox https://mcp.botsinbox.com/mcp --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"
Cursor / Windsurf / VS Code — add an mcpServers entry in the client's MCP config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "botsinbox": {
      "url": "https://mcp.botsinbox.com/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

Gemini CLI — same idea in ~/.gemini/settings.json using httpUrl; see the Gemini setup guide.

Hosted vs self-hosted MCP email

You can self-host email plumbing (an SMTP stack plus your own MCP wrapper), but receiving email well is the hard part: MX records, spam filtering, parsing, threading and uptime. A hosted MCP email server gives you the tools immediately, on infrastructure whose only job is receiving. With BotsInbox, receiving is free and unlimited; sending is a paid feature because free outbound mail destroys deliverability.

Security essentials

Email is untrusted input — instruct agents to treat message content as data, never commands.
BotsInbox flags likely prompt-injection attempts in each message (prompt_injection_suspected).
One API key per agent where practical; keys can be created per BotsInbox account at sign-up.

Try it: get a key from the docs, then follow the guide for your client — Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT (Actions) or Grok (API).

Frequently asked questions

What is an MCP email server?
A server that exposes email capabilities — creating inboxes and reading mail — as MCP tools, so any MCP-compatible agent (Claude, Cursor, Gemini CLI and others) can have a working email inbox without a human mailbox.

Which MCP clients work with BotsInbox?
Any client that supports remote (streamable HTTP) MCP servers with header authentication: Claude Desktop and Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code, Gemini CLI and more.

How much does the BotsInbox MCP server cost?
It is included free. Receiving email is free and unlimited; a free account holds up to 5 inboxes with 30-day message retention. Sending is a paid-plan feature.

Can the agent read OTP codes through MCP?
Yes. Verification codes are extracted automatically into the extracted_code field, returned by the list_messages and get_message tools.