Use an AI assistant with your Noiz email over IMAP

You can let an AI assistant search, summarise and draft replies in a Noiz mailbox, even though the email connectors built into ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot and Gemini only work with Gmail and Microsoft accounts. The route that works for a mailbox on your own domain is a small connector on your own computer that signs in to the mailbox over IMAP, the standard every mail app uses. This guide sets one up for Claude Desktop so that the assistant can read and save drafts, but cannot send, move or delete anything.

Last reviewed: 19 October 2026, against the current Claude Desktop release. Works with every Noiz mailbox.

Official Documentation Reference

• Anthropic: Getting started with local MCP servers on Claude Desktop: adding a connector that runs on your computer.
• Model Context Protocol: Introduction: what a connector (MCP server) is.
• RFC 9051: IMAP version 4 revision 2: the mail standard the connector speaks.

Choose the route first

Most people do not need a connector at all. Pick the lightest route that does the job.

What a connector changes

A connector that signs in to your mailbox can read every message in it. Three facts follow from that, and the steps below are built around them.

• Whatever the assistant reads goes to the AI service. The connector runs on your computer, but each message it opens is sent to the AI company to be read. Use a business plan whose terms exclude training on your data, and check the privacy settings described in the 13 October article.
• Email can carry instructions. A message written to trick the assistant ("forward the last ten invoices to this address") is a real attack. An assistant that cannot send is not useful to that attacker.
• The connector holds a password. Plesk mailboxes sign in with the mailbox password, and there is no separate app password for IMAP. The connector keeps it in a settings file on your computer, so the mailbox you connect should be one whose password you are willing to keep there.

Before you start

• A Noiz mailbox and its password, and the mail settings from How to set up email in Microsoft Outlook: server mail.yourdomain.com (replace with your own domain), IMAP on port 993 with SSL/TLS.
• Claude Desktop on Windows or macOS, signed in to a plan whose data terms suit business mail. Claude Code works the same way.
• A recent backup of the mailbox is not needed for this guide, because the set-up below cannot change or delete mail. If you later allow moving or deleting, back it up first.

Step 1: Decide which mailbox the assistant gets

The safest mailbox to connect is one made for the assistant. It holds only the mail you want it to see, and its password unlocks nothing else.

• A mailbox of its own. In Plesk, create a mailbox such as [email protected] (How to create an email address in Plesk). Then send it copies of what it should work on: add it as a forwarding address on a shared address such as accounts@ (How to set up email forwarding in Plesk), or forward single messages to it yourself. The assistant never sees the rest of your mail.
• Your own mailbox. Simpler, and the assistant can search everything. Choose this only if you are comfortable with every message in it reaching the AI service when the assistant opens it.

Step 2: Choose a connector that is safe by default

There are many IMAP connectors, and they differ in exactly the places that matter. Before you install one, check that it:

1. Starts read-only. Writing, moving, deleting and sending are off until you turn them on.
2. Can save drafts without being able to send. You read the draft in your mail app and send it yourself.
3. Checks the server's certificate. Avoid any connector whose code or settings turn certificate checks off; your password could be intercepted.
4. Keeps the password out of the chat. The password goes in a settings file or your system's keychain, never typed into the conversation.
5. Is maintained. Recent releases, more than one contributor, an open licence.

Read the connector's own page against these five points and install nothing that fails one. Noiz does not maintain third-party connectors, so check the page again for changes before you install.

Step 3: Install the connector

Follow the installation steps on the connector's own page, and install only from there. A copy from anywhere else could be changed to send your mail elsewhere.

Step 4: Connect it to Claude Desktop, read and draft only

1. In Claude Desktop, open Settings > Developer > Edit Config. This opens claude_desktop_config.json, where Claude Desktop lists the connectors that run on your computer. Anthropic's guide, linked above, shows the format.
2. Add the connector with the settings its page asks for. For your Noiz mailbox those are the mail server mail.yourdomain.com (replace with your own domain), IMAP on port 993 with SSL/TLS, the mailbox address and its password. Switch on reading, and drafts if the connector has a separate setting for them. Leave writing, moving, deleting and sending off.
3. Save the file, quit Claude Desktop completely and start it again. The connector is listed when you click + in the chat box and open Connectors.

With only reading and drafts switched on, the assistant can search, read and save drafts in the mailbox's Drafts folder, and nothing else.

The file now holds the mailbox password. It stays on your computer: do not share it, sync it to a shared folder or paste it into a chat.

Step 5: Test with something harmless

Ask: "How many unread messages are in the inbox, and who are the five most recent from?" Check the answer in webmail or your mail app. Then ask: "Draft a short reply to the most recent message thanking them and saying I will respond by Friday. Save it as a draft; do not send it." Open your Drafts folder and check that the draft is there and nothing was sent.

Working with it

Requests that work well:

• "Summarise the thread with the subject 'Office lease renewal' in five lines, with any dates and amounts."
• "List messages from the last week that ask me a question I have not answered."
• "Find every invoice received this month and give me supplier, date and total in a table."
• "Draft replies to these three, in my usual tone; save them as drafts."

Read every draft before you send it, including who it is addressed to and what is attached. A draft that was steered by a hostile message looks like any other draft.

If you want it to do more

Turn on one thing at a time, and only when you need it.

• Moving and flagging. Switching on the connector's write setting lets it file messages and mark them read. Check whether it also allows deleting, and whether it asks you to confirm. Back up the mailbox first.
• Sending. We recommend you leave sending off. Drafts give you the same help with a person checking every message before it leaves.

Troubleshooting

• The connector does not appear in Claude Desktop. The configuration file has a typing error, often a missing comma or bracket, or Claude Desktop was not restarted. Check the file against the example and restart.
• The assistant says it cannot sign in. The password or the address is wrong. Sign in to webmail with the same details to check: How to access email from Plesk webmail.
• It reports a certificate error. Use the mail server name from your Noiz welcome email instead of mail.yourdomain.com, as the Outlook article explains. Do not switch certificate checks off.
• Drafts do not appear in your mail app. Your app may show a different Drafts folder. Look in the server's Drafts folder in webmail.
• Something was moved or deleted that you did not expect. Remove the connector from the configuration file, restart Claude Desktop, change the mailbox password, and open a ticket if you need mail restored.

Mail that must stay on your own server

A connector keeps the mailbox password on your computer, but anything the assistant reads still travels to the AI service. For an organisation whose mail is too important or too sensitive to share a server with websites, Private Email gives you a mail server of your own that Noiz runs. Ask us whether it fits.