mcp-gmail-manager 0.3.2

Gmail Model Context Protocol server with recipient allowlist and local audit log.

mcp-gmail-manager

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A comprehensive Gmail Model Context Protocol server: 35 tools covering send/preview/confirm, reply, forward, drafts, search, read, attachments, trash, labels, filters, signature, and vacation responder.

Defence-in-depth features that distinguish it from other Gmail MCPs:

• Tamper-evident audit log (on by default) — every write/send/modify/download appends a JSON line to audit.jsonl, chained by SHA-256 so partial tampering is detectable. Includes log rotation, startup chain verification, optional read auditing, and a mcp-gmail-manager-verify-log CLI.
• Recipient allowlist (off by default) — when enabled, every outbound operation (send_email, create_draft, reply_to_message, forward_message, create_filter with a forward action, plus embedded addresses in signature and vacation body) checks recipients against configured domains and explicit addresses.
• Attachment path allowlist + denylist (denylist on by default) — the MCP refuses to attach or overwrite obvious credential files (~/.ssh/, ~/.aws/, id_rsa, .env, token.json, etc.), closing the "LLM exfils SSH key as attachment" attack. See Security notes for the full default deny set.
• Prompt-injection tainted-content markers — read tools (get_message, get_thread, search_threads, list_drafts) wrap message bodies and snippets in <untrusted-email-content>...</untrusted-email-content> tags. Tool descriptions instruct the LLM to treat wrapped content as data, not instructions.
• Outbound content scanning (off by default) — regex-based detection of secrets in the subject/body/signature/vacation content (AWS access keys, Stripe/OpenAI/Anthropic/GitHub/GitLab/Google/Twilio tokens, PEM private keys, JWTs, credentials embedded in URLs). Blocks the send before it hits Gmail if a pattern matches.
• Preview + confirm send flow (off by default) — preview_send_email runs every guardrail and stores the payload; confirm_send_email(preview_id) delivers it. When send_confirmation.required=true, direct send_email is disabled so a compromised LLM cannot "preview X, then send Y".
• Rate limiting (off by default) — cap outbound sends per hour to stop runaway agent loops from burning Gmail quota.
• Least-privilege OAuth scopes — requests gmail.modify + gmail.settings.basic only. Does NOT request mail.google.com, so permanent delete is intentionally unavailable.

See examples/config.with-allowlist.json for an institutional-mode configuration.

Tools (33)

Group	Tools
Send / reply / forward	send_email, preview_send_email, confirm_send_email, reply_to_message, forward_message
Drafts	create_draft, list_drafts, send_draft, update_draft, delete_draft
Read / profile	get_profile, get_message, search_threads, get_thread
Attachments	get_message_attachments, download_attachment
Trash	trash_message, untrash_message, trash_thread, untrash_thread
Labels	list_labels, create_label, update_label, delete_label, label_message, unlabel_message, label_thread, unlabel_thread
Filters	list_filters, create_filter, delete_filter
Signature	get_signature, update_signature
Vacation responder	get_vacation_responder, set_vacation_responder

OAuth scopes requested: gmail.modify + gmail.settings.basic. Does not request the https://mail.google.com/ superuser scope — permanent delete is intentionally unsupported.

Requirements

• Python ≥ 3.10
• A Google Cloud project with the Gmail API enabled and an OAuth 2.0 client (Desktop type)
• A way to forward localhost:8765 to your auth host (typically ssh -L 8765:localhost:8765 user@host)

Install

Supported on Linux, macOS, and Windows. Recommended path is pipx, which installs the CLI into an isolated venv and exposes the entry points on $PATH.

Linux (Debian / Ubuntu / Mint / Fedora / Arch)

sudo apt install pipx        # Debian / Ubuntu / Mint
sudo dnf install pipx        # Fedora
sudo pacman -S python-pipx   # Arch
pipx ensurepath              # adds ~/.local/bin to PATH
# reopen shell or: source ~/.bashrc

pipx install mcp-gmail-manager

macOS

brew install pipx            # or: python3 -m pip install --user pipx
pipx ensurepath              # adds ~/.local/bin to PATH
# reopen shell or: source ~/.zshrc

pipx install mcp-gmail-manager

Windows (PowerShell)

# If you don't have Python yet:  winget install --id Python.Python.3.12
python -m pip install --user pipx
python -m pipx ensurepath
# close and reopen PowerShell

pipx install mcp-gmail-manager

Windows caveats — everything works, with two model-of-the-OS notes:

• Token file permissions. On Linux/macOS the MCP writes token.json with chmod 0o600. On Windows there is no POSIX chmod, so the file inherits your %USERPROFILE% ACL — protected against other user accounts, but any process running as your user can read it. Same effective posture as most Windows CLI tools that store OAuth tokens.
• Attachment path deny list works. As of v0.3.2 the deny/allow-list matching normalises paths to forward-slash form via Path.as_posix(), so a Windows path like C:\Users\me\.ssh\id_rsa is correctly caught by the default ~/.ssh/ deny pattern. Confirmed by the smoke suite on both platforms.

Alternative on any OS — manual venv

python3 -m venv ~/.venv-mcp-gmail
~/.venv-mcp-gmail/bin/pip install mcp-gmail-manager
# Windows: python -m venv %USERPROFILE%\.venv-mcp-gmail
# Use the absolute path when registering with Claude Code (see below)

Why not plain pip install system-wide? On modern Debian-based distros and Homebrew Python it fails with error: externally-managed-environment (PEP 668) — the OS protects its Python. The pipx and venv methods above are the canonical workarounds.

From source:

git clone https://github.com/arthjhon/mcp-gmail-manager.git
cd mcp-gmail-manager
pipx install .

Google Cloud setup (one-time, ~10 minutes)

1. Go to Google Cloud Console and create a new project (or pick an existing one).
2. Enable the Gmail API (not "Gmail MCP API" — that's Google's own remote MCP; not what we want).
3. Configure the OAuth consent screen:
   • User type: Internal if your account is part of a Google Workspace (no token expiration); otherwise External in Testing mode (up to 100 users, refresh tokens expire every 7 days — see Token expiration below).
   • Scopes: add https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.modify and https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.settings.basic. Do not add anything else.
   • Test users (External only): add the Gmail address you'll authenticate with.
4. Create an OAuth Client ID:
   • Application type: Desktop app
   • Download the JSON. Save it as credentials.json.

First-time auth

Move your credentials into the config directory (default ~/.config/mcp-gmail-manager/):

mkdir -p ~/.config/mcp-gmail-manager
mv ~/Downloads/client_secret_*.json ~/.config/mcp-gmail-manager/credentials.json
chmod 600 ~/.config/mcp-gmail-manager/credentials.json

Run the auth flow:

mcp-gmail-manager-auth

This binds to localhost:8765 and prints a Google authorisation URL. Open it in a browser on a machine that can reach localhost:8765 on the auth host:

• Local desktop: the printed URL works directly.
• Remote / headless server: forward the port from your laptop first:

  ssh -L 8765:localhost:8765 user@your-server
  

  Then run mcp-gmail-manager-auth inside that SSH session.

Authorise with the Google account that will own outbound mail. On success the script writes token.json and exits.

Token expiration

The refresh token's lifetime depends on how the OAuth consent screen is configured:

Setup	Refresh token lifetime	Re-auth required?
Internal (Google Workspace)	No expiration	Never (until user revokes)
External + Testing	7 days (Google's policy for unverified apps)	Yes — weekly
External + Production verified	No expiration	Never, but verification requires a paid Google security assessment

When the refresh token expires in Testing mode you'll see invalid_grant or Token has been expired or revoked errors. To recover:

rm ~/.config/mcp-gmail-manager/token.json
mcp-gmail-manager-auth

Takes ~30 seconds. Your credentials.json is not affected — only the user's token.

How to avoid the weekly rotation

• Workspace users: configure the consent screen as Internal instead of External. Token never expires.
• Personal Gmail users: weekly re-auth is the only practical option today. Production verification for gmail.modify requires a Google security assessment (paid, weeks of process) — not feasible for most personal projects.
• Set a calendar reminder or a cron job to nudge you weekly. A future release may add proactive in-tool warnings before expiry.

Register with Claude Code

If installed via pipx:

claude mcp add gmail-manager -- mcp-gmail-manager

If installed in a manual venv that isn't on $PATH:

claude mcp add gmail-manager -- ~/.venv-mcp-gmail/bin/mcp-gmail-manager

Restart your Claude Code session so the new tool schemas load.

Multiple Gmail accounts

Each MCP instance handles one Gmail account. To use several accounts from the same Claude Code session (e.g. personal + work), register the MCP once per account with a distinct GMAIL_MCP_CONFIG_DIR. Each instance gets its own credentials, token, audit log, and config — fully isolated.

Setup per account

# 1. Dedicated config directory
mkdir -p ~/.config/mcp-gmail-<name> && chmod 700 ~/.config/mcp-gmail-<name>

# 2. Reuse the same OAuth client (one credentials.json works for any user in the same GCP project)
cp ~/.config/mcp-gmail-<other>/credentials.json ~/.config/mcp-gmail-<name>/
chmod 600 ~/.config/mcp-gmail-<name>/credentials.json

# 3. Authenticate with the target Gmail account
GMAIL_MCP_CONFIG_DIR=$HOME/.config/mcp-gmail-<name> mcp-gmail-manager-auth

# 4. Register with the env override
claude mcp add gmail-<name> -s user \
  -e GMAIL_MCP_CONFIG_DIR=$HOME/.config/mcp-gmail-<name> \
  -- mcp-gmail-manager

Restart Claude Code. The tools appear under separate namespaces:

• mcp__gmail-personal__send_email → sends from the personal account
• mcp__gmail-work__send_email → sends from the work account

You can prompt Claude with "send via gmail-work" and it picks the right namespace.

Per-account configuration

Each <config_dir>/config.json is independent. Useful patterns:

// ~/.config/mcp-gmail-work/config.json — strict allowlist
{
  "allowlist": {
    "enabled": true,
    "domains": ["yourcompany.com"]
  }
}

// ~/.config/mcp-gmail-personal/config.json — silence the audit log
{
  "audit_log": { "enabled": false }
}

Compromise of one account's token does not leak the other — each lives in a separate directory with chmod 600.

Configuration

~/.config/mcp-gmail-manager/config.json is optional — if it doesn't exist, sensible defaults apply (no allowlist, audit log enabled). Two ready-to-copy examples are provided:

• examples/config.example.json — hardened defaults (recommended starting point). Every guardrail on; allowlist enabled but empty, so the startup warning will point you at what to configure first.
• examples/config.with-allowlist.json — fully-populated institutional example with placeholder domains.
• examples/config.permissive.json — explicit opt-out for users who want no guardrails (allowlist off, content scan off, rate limit off, no send confirmation). Consider this only if you understand the blast radius.

Schema reference:

{
  "allowlist": {
    "enabled": false,
    "domains": [],
    "emails": []
  },
  "audit_log": {
    "enabled": true,
    "include_reads": false,
    "path": null
  },
  "attachments": {
    "max_total_bytes": 20971520,
    "allowed_paths": [],
    "deny_patterns": [],
    "use_default_deny_patterns": true
  }
}

Field	Default	Meaning
allowlist.enabled	false	When false, any recipient is accepted. Enable explicitly for institutional use.
allowlist.domains	[]	Lower-case domain suffixes accepted as recipients.
allowlist.emails	[]	Explicit lower-case email addresses accepted regardless of domain.
audit_log.enabled	true	Append every write/send/modify to JSONL.
audit_log.include_reads	false	Also log read operations (get_message, search_threads, get_thread, list_drafts, get_message_attachments). Useful for detecting silent reconnaissance.
audit_log.path	null	null → <config_dir>/audit.jsonl. Override to centralise logs.
audit_log.max_size_bytes	10485760 (10 MB)	Rotate to audit.jsonl.1..N when the current file exceeds this size. Chain resets across rotations; verify each file separately with the CLI.
audit_log.max_backups	5	Number of rotated backups to keep. Older ones are overwritten.
audit_log.verify_on_startup	false	Walk the chain on server start and emit a stderr warning if broken. Cheap for logs up to a few MB.
attachments.max_total_bytes	20971520 (20 MB)	Combined size cap per send. Gmail's hard limit is 25 MB raw.
attachments.allowed_paths	[]	When populated, attach/download sources and destinations MUST be under one of these bases. Empty = only deny patterns apply.
attachments.deny_patterns	[]	Extra regex patterns to reject (matched against absolute path). Added on top of defaults.
attachments.use_default_deny_patterns	true	Include the built-in deny set (~/.ssh/, ~/.aws/, id_rsa, .env, token.json, credential files, browser stores).
rate_limit.enabled	false	When true, cap outbound sends per hour per running instance. In-memory sliding window — resets on server restart.
rate_limit.sends_per_hour	60	Applied to send_email, reply_to_message, forward_message, and send_draft combined.
content_scan.enabled	false	When true, scan outbound subjects, bodies, signatures, and vacation content for secret patterns. Matches block the operation before it reaches Gmail.
content_scan.use_default_patterns	true	Include the built-in secret regexes (AWS access keys, Stripe/OpenAI/Anthropic/GitHub/GitLab/Google/Twilio tokens, PEM private keys, JWTs, URL-embedded credentials).
content_scan.patterns	[]	Additional user-defined patterns. Each entry: {"name": "...", "regex": "..."}. Names surface in error messages for debugging.
content_scan.scan_subject / scan_body / scan_signature / scan_vacation	true	Per-scope toggles. Useful for disabling one location while keeping others active.
send_confirmation.required	false	When true, direct send_email is disabled — must go through preview_send_email → confirm_send_email(preview_id).
send_confirmation.preview_ttl_seconds	300	How long a preview stays valid before it must be re-issued.

Verifying the audit log

Run mcp-gmail-manager-verify-log to walk the hash chain and confirm no entry has been edited or removed:

mcp-gmail-manager-verify-log                       # verify the active log
mcp-gmail-manager-verify-log ~/.config/.../audit.jsonl.1   # verify a rotated backup

Exit codes: 0 OK, 1 log not found, 2 malformed JSON, 3 chain broken.

Environment variable overrides

Variable	Default
GMAIL_MCP_CONFIG_DIR	$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/mcp-gmail-manager or ~/.config/mcp-gmail-manager
GMAIL_MCP_CREDENTIALS	<config_dir>/credentials.json
GMAIL_MCP_TOKEN	<config_dir>/token.json

Security notes

• Threat model: this MCP is primarily hardened against a misbehaving LLM — prompt injection, hallucinated recipients, tricked-into-exfil scenarios. It is NOT a substitute for host security; an attacker with local access can read token.json and call Gmail directly, bypassing every guardrail here.
• Token storage: token.json is written chmod 600. Treat it as a password.
• No remote attestation: this server runs entirely on your machine. No telemetry, no third-party calls beyond googleapis.com.
• OAuth scope is deliberately narrow-ish: gmail.modify covers send/read/label/trash/drafts. It does NOT request mail.google.com, so permanent delete is unavailable — deletes go to Trash and can be undone with untrash_*. If you only need to send, fork and replace the scope with gmail.send.
• Recipient guardrails cover forward-in-filters: create_filter with an action.forward targeting a non-allowlisted address is rejected. Filters were a common bypass of send-only allowlists.
• Read tools mark content as untrusted: bodies and snippets are wrapped in <untrusted-email-content>...</untrusted-email-content>. Tool descriptions instruct downstream LLMs to treat wrapped content as data. Any occurrence of the closing tag inside a message body is escaped to prevent break-out.
• Default attachment deny set (source and destination) covers common credential / secret paths: ~/.ssh/, ~/.aws/, ~/.gnupg/, ~/.docker/config.json, ~/.kube/, .env, .env.*, credentials.json, token.json, id_rsa/id_ed25519/id_ecdsa/id_dsa, .git-credentials, .netrc, wallet.dat, .bash_history, .zsh_history, ~/.mozilla/*/logins.json, authorized_keys, known_hosts. Extend via attachments.deny_patterns or narrow further via attachments.allowed_paths.
• Audit log is tamper-evident, not tamper-proof: each entry includes prev_hash = sha256(previous line). Partial modification breaks the chain and is detectable. A full log rewrite by an attacker with file-write is NOT prevented — pair with off-host log shipping (roadmap) for stronger guarantees.
• What is NOT mitigated: rate limiting (a compromised agent can burn Gmail quota fast), outbound content pattern scanning (no secret regex on bodies), signature/vacation phishing (allowlist doesn't cover their content), full log rewrite by a local attacker. See SECURITY.md for the current threat model and roadmap.

Limitations

• OAuth "Production" verification for gmail.modify requires a paid Google security assessment. Stay in "Internal" (Workspace, no expiration) or "Testing" (≤ 100 users, 7-day refresh token rotation — see Token expiration) to avoid this.
• HTML email body composition is not exposed as a first-class field. Send via create_draft + manual HTML editing in the Gmail UI, or extend _build_mime in a fork.
• Push notifications (Pub/Sub watch/stop) not implemented — out of scope.

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome. Keep changes scoped, document any new tool with a schema example, and add an audit-log entry for anything that mutates state.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.