Gmail Attachment MCP Server

The Gmail Attachment MCP Server bridges the gap between AI assistants and email workflows by exposing a lightweight, secure microservice that retrieves attachments from Gmail messages. Instead of building custom IMAP parsers or handling OAuth flows, developers can invoke a single MCP tool to pull files directly from an inbox, enabling automated document processing, data ingestion, or file sharing within conversational AI pipelines.

Problem Solved

Modern enterprises often need to surface email attachments in chatbot or virtual‑assistant scenarios—think of a support bot that can pull a user’s invoice, a legal assistant that fetches contract PDFs, or an analytics engine that aggregates data from email attachments. Traditional approaches require manual credential handling, complex IMAP logic, or third‑party libraries that expose only raw email content. The Gmail Attachment MCP Server eliminates these hurdles by providing a ready‑to‑use, secure endpoint that accepts a message ID and returns file paths for the attachments. This reduces boilerplate code, centralizes credential management through environment variables, and guarantees that connections use IMAP over SSL for data protection.

Core Functionality

At its heart, the server implements a MCP method. When invoked, it:

1. Connects to Gmail’s IMAP server ( by default) using credentials supplied via environment variables.
2. Locates the specified message by its hexadecimal ID, a format that aligns with Gmail’s internal identifiers.
3. Iterates over all attachment parts of the message, decoding and saving each to a user‑specified directory (defaulting to ).
4. Returns an array of file system paths pointing to the downloaded attachments, which can be passed back into AI workflows or further processed by downstream services.

Because the server uses FastMCP, it can be started with a single command and integrated into any system that speaks the MCP protocol—whether that’s Claude, GPT‑4o, or a custom in‑house assistant.

Key Features & Advantages

• Secure IMAP over SSL: All traffic to Gmail is encrypted, safeguarding credentials and attachment data.
• Environment‑Driven Configuration: Credentials are supplied via , (or an app password), and optionally . This keeps secrets out of codebases.
• Minimal API Surface: The single abstracts away the complexities of IMAP, MIME parsing, and file handling.
• FastMCP Integration: The server is built on FastMCP, enabling low‑latency communication and easy scaling within MCP ecosystems.
• Cross‑Platform Compatibility: Works on any platform that can run Python 3.7+ and supports MCP tooling, from local dev machines to cloud functions.

Use Cases & Real‑World Scenarios

• Document Retrieval: A virtual assistant can fetch a user’s recent receipts or reports by message ID, allowing instant access without manual downloads.
• Automated Workflows: An AI‑driven data pipeline can trigger the attachment download tool when a new email arrives, automatically ingesting files into storage or analytics services.
• Compliance & Auditing: Legal teams can programmatically pull attachments for evidence gathering, ensuring that all files are stored in a controlled directory.
• Multilingual Support: Language models can summarize or translate the content of attachments after they are retrieved, providing end‑to‑end email handling.

Integration with AI Workflows

Developers can embed the MCP server into their existing tooling stack in several ways:

• Direct Invocation: Call from an AI prompt or script, passing the message ID and receiving file paths for further processing.
• MCP Inspector: Use to test the tool interactively during development.
• Goose Integration: Configure Goose extensions to run the server as a bundled service, automatically injecting environment variables and handling timeouts.

By exposing attachment retrieval as an MCP tool, the server enables conversational agents to seamlessly transition from dialogue to actionable file handling, all while keeping security and configuration concerns abstracted away.