outlook-assistant

<p align="center">
  <img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/littlebearapps/outlook-assistant/main/docs/assets/outlook-assistant-logo-full.png" height="200" alt="Outlook Assistant" />
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<h1 align="center">Outlook Assistant</h1>

<p align="center">
  <strong>MCP server for Outlook email, calendar, and contacts — let your AI assistant manage your inbox directly from the conversation.</strong>
</p>

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  <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/@littlebearapps/outlook-assistant"><img src="https://img.shields.io/npm/v/@littlebearapps/outlook-assistant" alt="npm version" /></a>
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Outlook Assistant connects AI assistants to your Microsoft Outlook account through the [Model Context Protocol](https://modelcontextprotocol.io/). Ask your AI assistant to search your inbox, send emails, schedule meetings, manage contacts, and configure mailbox settings — without leaving the conversation. Works with Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, and any MCP-compatible client.

**Works with personal Outlook.com and work/school Microsoft 365 accounts.**

<div align="center">
  <br />
  <a href="https://github.com/littlebearapps/outlook-assistant/blob/main/docs/demo/outlook-assistant-demo.mp4">
    <img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/littlebearapps/outlook-assistant/main/docs/demo/outlook-assistant-demo.gif" alt="Outlook Assistant Demo — searching emails, reading, and drafting a reply" width="720" style="border-radius: 12px; box-shadow: 0 8px 32px rgba(0,0,0,0.12);" />
  </a>
  <br />
  <sub>Search inbox → read &amp; summarise → draft a reply — all from the conversation</sub>
  <br /><br />
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### What you can do

- 📨 **Search and read emails** — find messages by sender, subject, date, or keywords; read full threads with conversation grouping; batch flag, move, export, or categorise multiple emails at once
- 🛡️ **Send emails with safety controls** — dry-run preview, pre-send mail tips (out-of-office, mailbox full, delivery restrictions), session rate limiting, and recipient allowlist to prevent mistakes
- ✏️ **Draft emails for review** — create, update, and send drafts; reply and forward as drafts; preview before saving with dry-run mode
- 📅 **Manage your calendar** — view upcoming events, schedule meetings with attendees, decline or cancel invitations
- 📦 **Export emails** — save individual messages to Markdown, EML, JSON, or CSV; export full conversation threads to MBOX or HTML; bulk-export search results in one call
- 🔍 **Investigate email headers** — full raw header access (DKIM, SPF, DMARC, delivery chain, X-Mailer, X-Originating-IP) for phishing investigation and compliance review
- 🗂️ **Organise your inbox** — create folders, set up inbox rules, colour-code with categories, manage Focused Inbox — all work together for complete inbox automation
- 🔄 **Track inbox changes** — delta sync detects new, modified, and deleted emails since your last check, with tokens for incremental polling
- 👥 **Manage contacts** — search your contact book and organisational directory, create and update contact records
- ⚙️ **Configure settings** — set out-of-office auto-replies, working hours, and time zone
- 📬 **Access shared mailboxes** — read team inboxes and service accounts (Microsoft 365)
- 🏢 **Find meeting rooms** — search by building, floor, capacity, AV equipment, and wheelchair accessibility (Microsoft 365)

### Why Outlook Assistant?

| Without Outlook Assistant | With Outlook Assistant |
|---------------------|------------------|
| Switch between your AI tool and Outlook to manage email | Read, search, send, and export emails directly from your AI assistant |
| Manually search and export email threads | Full email tools including search, threading, and bulk export |
| Context-switch for calendar and contacts | Manage calendar events, contacts, and settings in one place |
| Copy-paste email content into conversations | Your AI assistant reads your emails natively with full context |
| No programmatic access to mailbox rules or categories | Create inbox rules, manage categories, configure auto-replies |
| Manually check each email for phishing red flags | Forensic header analysis — DKIM, SPF, DMARC, spam scores, and delivery chain in one call |
| Poll your inbox to check for new mail | Delta sync returns only changes since your last check, with tokens for continuous polling |

## Features

| Module | Tools | What You Can Do |
|--------|------:|-----------------|
| **Email** | 8 | `search-emails` (list/search/delta/conversations), `read-email` (content + forensic headers), `send-email` (with dry-run + mail tips), `draft` (create/update/send/delete/reply/forward), `update-email` (read status, flags), `attachments`, `export`, `get-mail-tips` |
| **Calendar** | 3 | `list-events`, `create-event`, `manage-event` (update/decline/cancel/delete) |
| **Contacts** | 2 | `manage-contact` (list/search/get/create/update/delete), `search-people` |
| **Categories** | 3 | `manage-category` (CRUD), `apply-category`, `manage-focused-inbox` |
| **Settings** | 1 | `mailbox-settings` (get/set auto-replies/set working hours) |
| **Folder** | 1 | `folders` (list/create/move/stats/delete) |
| **Rules** | 1 | `manage-rules` (list/create/update/reorder/delete) |
| **Advanced** | 2 | `access-shared-mailbox`, `find-meeting-rooms` |
| **Auth** | 1 | `auth` (status/authenticate/about) |

**22 tools total** — consolidated from 55 for optimal AI performance. See the [Tools Reference](docs/quickrefs/tools-reference.md) for complete parameter details.

### Export Formats

Format support varies by `target`:

| Format | Extension | `target=message` (single) | `target=messages` (batch) | `target=conversation` (thread) |
|--------|-----------|--------|--------|--------|
| `mime` / `eml` | `.eml` | ✅ | – | ✅ |
| `mbox` | `.mbox` | – | – | ✅ |
| `markdown` | `.md` | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| `json` | `.json` | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| `html` | `.html` | – | – | ✅ |
| `csv` | `.csv` | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |

Export individual emails, search results, or entire conversation threads — use `target=messages` with a search query (or the `query` shortcut) to batch-export without manually collecting IDs.

## Account Compatibility

Outlook Assistant works with both personal and work/school Microsoft accounts, but some features behave differently:

| Feature | Personal (Outlook.com) | Work/School (Microsoft 365) |
|---------|----------------------|---------------------------|
| Email read, send, search | Full support | Full support |
| Calendar events | Full support | Full support |
| Contacts CRUD | Full support | Full support |
| Inbox rules | Full support | Full support |
| Folders | Full support | Full support |
| Free-text `query` search | Limited — use `subject`, `from`, `to` filters instead | Full KQL support |
| Categories | Full support | Full support |
| Mailbox settings | Full support | Full support |
| Focused Inbox | API works (overrides stored) but mail routing not affected | Full support |
| Shared mailboxes | Not available | Requires `Mail.Read.Shared` |
| Meeting room search | Not available | Requires `Place.Read.All` + admin consent |

> **Note**: On personal accounts, Microsoft's `$search` API has limited support for free-text queries. Outlook Assistant handles this automatically with progressive search — if your query returns no results, it falls back through OData filters, boolean filters, and recent message listing to find your emails. For the most direct results on personal accounts, use the structured filter parameters (`from`, `subject`, `to`, `receivedAfter`).

### What Makes This Different

- **Progressive search** — on accounts where Microsoft's `$search` API is limited, Outlook Assistant automatically falls back through up to 4 search strategies to find your emails. Most Graph API wrappers fail silently; this one adapts.
- **Email forensics** — raw header access for DKIM, SPF, DMARC, delivery chain, X-Mailer, X-Originating-IP, and spam scores. Returns the full data so you can investigate phishing, audit compliance, or trace delivery issues. (Auto-verdict is on the v3.8.0 roadmap; today the data is surfaced and analysed in-conversation.)
- **Delta sync** — incremental inbox monitoring returns only what changed since your last check, with tokens for continuous polling. Designed for agent workflows that need to watch a mailbox.
- **Batch operations** — flag, move, export, or categorise multiple emails in a single call. Search-driven export lets you batch-export results without collecting IDs manually.
- **Pre-send intelligence** — check recipients for out-of-office, full mailbox, delivery restrictions, and moderation status before sending — no other Outlook MCP server offers this.
- **Compound automation** — rules, categories, folders, and Focused Inbox work together. Set up complete inbox management through your AI assistant in one conversation.

## Safety & Token Efficiency

Outlook Assistant is designed with safety-first principles for AI-driven email access:

**Destructive action safeguards** — Every tool carries [MCP annotations](https://modelcontextprotocol.io/docs/concepts/tools