Connect an AI assistant

What you can ask

• “Give me an overview of our email account.”
• “Is example.com set up correctly? Which DNS record is missing, and what exactly do I add?”
• “Did any mail bounce this week? Why?”
• “Who uses the most storage?”
• “Who hasn’t chosen a password yet?”
• “Who is in the sales group?”

What it can’t do

• It can’t change anything: no new users, password resets, settings or billing changes.
• It can’t send mail, and it can’t read anyone’s mail or contacts.
• It reads only your own account. Partners can also read clients that allow it (see For partners).
• AI apps can’t connect to the live demo.

Turn on AI assistants

AI assistants are off until the account owner turns them on.

1. In your admin console, open Settings and find AI assistants.
2. Choose Turn on. Only the account owner can do this.
3. Copy the Connector address it shows. You paste it into your AI app.

Now anyone who signs in to your admin console can connect an AI app, with their own sign-in. Turning AI assistants off disconnects every app at once.

Connect Claude

On claude.ai or in the Claude desktop app, on a Free, Pro or Max plan:

1. Go to Customize, then Connectors, choose + Add, then Add custom connector.
2. Name it, for example “Email admin”, paste the connector address and choose Continue. Under Authentication, choose Sign in now. Under OAuth client, choose Register automatically: Claude’s published identity doesn’t work with this connector yet. Then choose Add.
3. Sign in to your admin console when Claude opens the sign-in page (if it doesn’t, choose Connect), then choose Allow. See Sign in and allow.

In a chat, choose +, then Connectors and turn on Email admin, then ask your question. Claude may ask before it uses a tool: these tools only read. On the Free plan, you can add one custom connector.

Claude Team and Enterprise plans: an owner of your Claude organisation adds the connector in Organization settings, then Connectors, with Add, then Custom (and Web, if asked). Then each person finds it under Customize, then Connectors and chooses Connect.

Connect Claude Code

1. In a terminal, run this command, which ends with the connector address. Leave out --scope user to add it to the current project only.

   claude mcp add --transport http email-admin --scope user https://mcp.trypatra.com/admin

2. In Claude Code, type /mcp, pick email-admin and choose to authenticate. Your browser opens.
3. Sign in to your admin console and choose Allow.

To remove it later, run claude mcp remove email-admin.

Connect ChatGPT

Custom connections work in ChatGPT on the web, on the plans and workspaces that allow them.

1. Open Plugins, choose +, then Add custom MCP server. If you don’t see it, look for developer mode in ChatGPT’s settings, or ask your workspace admin.
2. Name it “Email admin”, paste the connector address as the Server URL and choose OAuth. Confirm the warning about custom servers (I understand and want to continue), then choose Create as a plugin.
3. Find Email admin among your plugins and install it. Sign in to your admin console when ChatGPT asks, and choose Allow. In a chat, type @ and pick Email admin.

ChatGPT’s menus change from time to time. If yours look different, look for the option to add a custom MCP server or connector.

Other AI apps

An AI app that can add a remote MCP server with OAuth sign-in can connect: add the connector address, then sign in when the app opens the sign-in page. A few desktop apps that sign in through their own type of link, such as Cursor, can’t connect yet.

Sign in and allow

1. The app opens a sign-in page. Use your admin console email and password, not a mailbox password. If you use two-step sign-in, enter your 6-digit code too.
2. Read the page: it names the app, your account, what the app may read, and where you go back to afterwards. Allow only an app you’ve just added yourself.
3. Choose Allow. You go back to the app, which can now read your account.

Most apps stay connected until someone disconnects them; the page tells you if an app’s access ends sooner. An app that isn’t used for 30 days asks you to sign in again. If you wait too long on the sign-in page, go back to the app and connect again.

Limits

• Each app a person connects can make 60 requests a minute and 5,000 a day. All the AI apps of your account together can make 120 a minute and 10,000 a day. A new day starts at midnight UTC.
• Every request counts, including the ones an app makes when it starts, so one question can use several. Long lists come a page at a time, so a big account needs more requests.

Privacy

• What the app reads is sent to the company that runs it, and that company’s terms apply, including whether it may use your data to train its models. Use an AI app your business trusts.
• The app reads account details, such as your people’s names and addresses, DNS records, and bounce reports with recipients’ addresses. It never gets the content of anyone’s mail.
• We log each tool call: which tool, for which account, which app and person, and whether it worked, never what was asked or what came back. We keep this log for 90 days. Connecting and disconnecting apps, and turning AI assistants on or off, are recorded in the audit log.
• Names, group names and bounce reasons come from people and other mail servers. The connection tells the app to treat them as information, never as instructions.

Disconnect an app

• In Settings, then AI assistants, under Connected AI apps, choose Disconnect. The app loses access at once. Owners and admins can disconnect any app; other people, the ones they connected.
• Turning AI assistants off disconnects every app of the account.
• Resetting your admin console password disconnects every app you connected. So does leaving the account.
• Remove the connector in the app too, so it stops trying: in Claude, under Customize, then Connectors; in Claude Code, with claude mcp remove email-admin.

For partners

• Connect with your partner account’s own sign-in. Ask “List my clients”, then ask about a client by name.
• Your app can read a client’s account only while that client’s owner has turned on AI assistants in their own Settings. It’s off by default, and you can’t turn it on for them, even while you manage their account.
• While a client’s switch is on, the owners and admins of your partner account can read that client with their AI apps.
• The sign-in and allow pages your clients see carry your brand, or no brand at all. Their web address and the connector address are ours, as the Partners page shows.

Troubleshooting

Related: Automations · Two-step sign-in · Security

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