Proton Safe MCP

A client-agnostic FastMCP server for Proton Mail through the official Proton Mail Bridge. It can read and search mail and create drafts with attachments. It deliberately cannot send email — you review every draft in Proton Mail and press Send yourself.

The server runs locally over STDIO for any MCP-compatible client (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, or anything else that speaks MCP). Attachments are uploaded as bounded base64 chunks through MCP tools, so the server never receives or reads a client filesystem path.

Read the full documentation for setup, configuration, tool inputs, security boundaries, and troubleshooting.

Why "safe"?

Email is attacker-controlled input. Any sender can put adversarial instructions in a message body, and an AI agent that reads mail and holds write-capable tools is one prompt injection away from doing something you did not ask for. This project limits the blast radius by construction:

• No send. There is no SMTP client and no send_message tool in the codebase — a test asserts it.
• No delete, no move, no received-attachment download tool.
• Human in the loop. Creating a draft requires an interactive approval in a local terminal that is not exposed as an MCP tool.
• No filesystem access for clients. Attachment bytes are streamed in chunks with declared size and SHA-256 verification; paths are rejected.
• Loopback only. STDIO transport, no listening socket, and the Bridge host is hard-coded to 127.0.0.1.

These controls reduce risk but do not make email trusted. Never expose unrelated write-capable tools in the same unattended agent workflow.

Architecture

┌────────────┐  STDIO / MCP   ┌───────────────────┐  IMAP (loopback)  ┌───────────────┐
│ MCP client │ ─────────────► │  proton-safe-mcp  │ ───────────────► │ Proton Bridge │
│ (any)      │   tools only   │                   │   127.0.0.1 only  │ (local)       │
└────────────┘                │  ├─ read tools    │                   └──────┬────────┘
                              │  ├─ chunked       │                          │ E2E-encrypted
      you, in a terminal      │  │  attachment    │                          ▼
┌───────────────────────┐    │  │  staging       │                   ┌───────────────┐
│ proton-safe-mcp        │───►│  └─ draft         │                   │  Proton Mail  │
│   approve <draft_id>   │    │     proposals     │                   │  (Drafts)     │
└────────────────────────┘    └───────────────────┘                   └──────────────┘
        out-of-band approval — not an MCP tool

Security properties

• STDIO only: the server opens no listening network socket.
• Proton Bridge host is hard-coded to 127.0.0.1 (PROTON_BRIDGE_HOST is intentionally unsupported).
• No SMTP client, send tool, delete tool, move tool, or received-attachment download tool.
• Message reads use BODY.PEEK, return plain text, omit attachment bytes, and cap body length.
• Attachment input is chunked base64 with declared size and SHA-256 verification.
• Only PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, TXT, CSV, PNG, and JPEG uploads are accepted.
• Attachment tokens are random, short-lived, single-use, and reverified before draft creation.
• Draft creation requires a separate local terminal approval that is not exposed as an MCP tool.
• The Bridge-generated IMAP password is stored in the operating-system keyring.
• Recipient, subject, and folder inputs are validated against header/criteria injection.
• State files are private to the Unix account (0700 directories, 0600 files, O_NOFOLLOW).

Requirements

• Linux with the official Proton Mail Bridge installed, signed in, and running (developed and tested on Ubuntu).
• A Proton plan that supports Bridge.
• Python 3.11 or newer.
• uv.
• A working Secret Service keyring (gnome-keyring or compatible).

Installation

Install the reviewed release from PyPI with uv:

uv tool install proton-safe-mcp==1.0.2

For development from source instead:

git clone https://github.com/fbossiere/proton-safe-mcp.git
cd proton-safe-mcp
uv sync --extra dev

Set only the Proton address and Bridge IMAP port in the MCP process environment:

export PROTON_BRIDGE_USER="your-address@proton.me"
export PROTON_IMAP_PORT="1143"

Store the Bridge-generated IMAP password (shown in the Bridge UI), not your Proton account password:

proton-safe-mcp setup

The value shown by Bridge is installation-specific and works only against the local Bridge.

Register with an MCP client

Configure a local STDIO server with these logical fields. Use command -v proton-safe-mcp to obtain the absolute command path when your client does not inherit your shell PATH:

{
  "name": "proton-safe",
  "transport": "stdio",
  "command": "/absolute/path/to/proton-safe-mcp",
  "args": ["serve"],
  "env": {
    "PROTON_BRIDGE_USER": "your-address@proton.me",
    "PROTON_IMAP_PORT": "1143"
  }
}

Do not put PROTON_BRIDGE_PASSWORD in the client configuration. The server reads it from the OS keyring established by setup.

Copy-paste instructions are available for Claude Code, Cursor, and VS Code. AI coding agents can follow the safety-constrained llms-install.md guide.

Verify the complete local setup without printing credentials, addresses, or mailbox data:

proton-safe-mcp doctor

OpenAI plugin

The repository includes a private, local-first Proton Safe plugin for ChatGPT and Codex. It packages safety-focused mail review and draft workflows with the same restricted MCP server:

• ChatGPT desktop and Codex can launch the bundled STDIO configuration directly on the Bridge machine, with no tunnel or dedicated server;
• direct MCP registration remains available when the packaged workflow skills are not needed;
• ChatGPT web or a client on another machine can optionally reach the Bridge host through OpenAI Secure MCP Tunnel without an inbound port;
• a remote deployment still keeps proton-safe-mcp and Proton Mail Bridge together, with IMAP fixed to 127.0.0.1.

See the OpenAI plugin guide for local ChatGPT desktop/Codex installation, direct MCP registration, and the optional remote tunnel.

Help test the onboarding. Linux and Proton Mail Bridge users can run the 10-minute external test and submit privacy-safe installation feedback.

Available MCP tools

There is deliberately no send_message tool.

Attachment and draft workflow

The MCP client only needs the ability to obtain the bytes of a file and call tools. There is no dependency on a particular client, service, or local directory.

1. Calculate the exact byte length and SHA-256 of the file.

2. Call begin_attachment_upload(filename, content_type, size_bytes, sha256_hex).

3. Base64-encode consecutive binary chunks no larger than the returned max_chunk_bytes.

4. Call upload_attachment_chunk(upload_id, chunk_index, data_base64) for indexes 0, 1, 2….

5. Call finish_attachment_upload(upload_id) and retain the returned attachment_token.

6. Call prepare_draft(..., attachment_tokens=[token]).

7. Inspect and approve the exact proposal in a local terminal:

   export PROTON_BRIDGE_USER="your-address@proton.me"
   proton-safe-mcp approve <draft_id>
   

8. Allow the MCP client to call commit_approved_draft(draft_id).

9. Open Proton Mail, review the draft, and send it manually.

The proposal expires after 15 minutes by default. Uploaded attachments expire after 30 minutes. The server intentionally keeps draft bodies in memory only; restarting it invalidates all pending proposals.

Local administration

proton-safe-mcp show <draft_id>      # inspect a pending draft
proton-safe-mcp approve <draft_id>   # interactive; no --yes bypass exists
proton-safe-mcp reject <draft_id>

Configuration reference

PROTON_BRIDGE_HOST is intentionally unsupported.

For isolated containers without a Secret Service keyring, PROTON_BRIDGE_PASSWORD may contain the Bridge-generated IMAP password. Avoid this fallback in desktop MCP client configuration: environment values may be visible to the client process or its diagnostics.

Development

uv sync --extra dev
uv run pytest --cov      # tests with coverage
uv run ruff check .      # lint
uv run ruff format .     # format
uv run mypy              # strict type checking

Proton Bridge is not needed for development: the test suite fakes the IMAP layer. Tests cover path rejection, MIME restrictions, ordered chunks, size/hash verification, token consumption, header injection, approval digest integrity, CLI approval flow, and HTML-to-text sanitization.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the design rules that reviews enforce.

Threat-model limitations

Read this before relying on the server in an autonomous workflow:

• A model necessarily sees any mail it reads and any attachment it creates or uploads.
• Uploaded attachment bytes are stored temporarily in files readable only by the Unix account. Use full-disk encryption.
• If the MCP client also has unrestricted shell access as the same Unix user, it can potentially write an approval marker itself. Keep shell/file-writing tools out of the same autonomous agent session when approval integrity matters.
• Secure MCP Tunnel keeps the server off the public internet, but mail content returned to an OpenAI product still crosses the local Bridge boundary and is processed by that product.
• Tool annotations are hints for clients, not authorization controls. The server enforces its own validation and local approval.
• Proton Bridge's self-signed TLS certificate is not verified. This is acceptable here only because the target host is unchangeably 127.0.0.1.

Security

To report a vulnerability, use GitHub private vulnerability reporting — never a public issue. See SECURITY.md.

License

MIT © 2026 Francois Bossiere.

This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by Proton AG. "Proton Mail" and "Proton Mail Bridge" are trademarks of Proton AG.