OWUI-Email-MCP

Email drafts via MCP for OpenWebUI. Template-driven, plain text or HTML, nothing sent.

Email drafting for OpenWebUI over the Model Context Protocol. The model fills a predefined template; the server stores the finished draft behind a short link. With HTML_FORMAT=true the link downloads a ready-to-open .eml file (HTML), otherwise it redirects straight to a mailto: draft (plain text) — either way an editable draft in the user's own mail client. Nothing is sent automatically, and the model never has to stream the whole email token by token.

✨ Highlights

• Fast by design — the model outputs a ~10-token short link; the draft is built server-side and only lives behind that link

• Two formats, one switch — HTML_FORMAT=true: .eml download marked X-Unsent: 1 that opens as an editable HTML draft (images, inline styles); HTML_FORMAT=false: instant mailto: redirect (plain text)

• One click to the draft — either way the draft opens in the user's default mail client; links expire after a TTL

• Nothing is sent — the user's own mail client opens the draft; the user stays in control

• Multi-user by design — JWT auth against OpenWebUI's secret, per-user rate limiting

• Stateless-ish — drafts live in a TTL cache in memory (powered by cachetools); no database, no files

Related MCP server: Gmail MCP Summarizer

🚀 Setup

uv sync
cp .env.example .env

.env.example documents every setting; the ones you must set:

• JWT_SECRET → OpenWebUI's WEBUI_SECRET_KEY

• PUBLIC_BASE_URL → URL of this server as reachable from the user's browser (it is embedded in the short links), e.g. http://192.168.1.10:8000

• HTML_FORMAT → true for HTML drafts via .eml download, false for plain text via instant mailto: redirect

🏃 Run

uv run python main.py

The server listens on 0.0.0.0:8000:

In OpenWebUI: Admin Settings → External Tools → add server of type MCP (Streamable HTTP) with URL http://<host>:8000/mcp and auth Session. The model gets list_email_templates and compose_email and is instructed to reply with the short link only.

🐳 Docker (optional)

Prebuilt images are published to ghcr.io on pushes to main (latest) and on version tags (X.Y.Z):

docker run -d -p 8000:8000 \
--restart unless-stopped \
--env-file .env \
-v ./templates:/app/templates \
--name owui-email-mcp \
ghcr.io/th3r3alduk3/owui-email-mcp:latest

Or build the image locally: docker build -t owui-email-mcp . — the volume mount keeps the templates editable without rebuilding the image.

🛠️ Tools

📝 Templates

Templates live in templates/ (name = filename without suffix) and are read fresh on every call — edit them without restarting. HTML_FORMAT selects which files are used:

• HTML_FORMAT=false — *.txt files: first line = subject, blank line, then the body; the short link redirects to a mailto: draft

• HTML_FORMAT=true — *.html files: the <title> is the subject; the short link downloads an .eml draft. Use inline styles only (a <style> block's CSS braces would clash with str.format); images referenced as src="/static/..." are rewritten to absolute PUBLIC_BASE_URL links so mail clients can load them

• {placeholders} are allowed anywhere and are filled via str.format with the values from the compose call; literal braces are written {{ and }}

⚠️ Limits

• Drafts are held in memory only and expire after LINK_TTL (default 24 h); at most MAX_STORED_EMAILS are kept. A restart clears all links.

• The draft link is unauthenticated by design (the browser opening it has no OpenWebUI session): anyone with the unguessable link can read the draft until it expires. Don't put secrets in templates.

• MCP requests are rate-limited per user (RATE_LIMIT_RPS/RATE_LIMIT_BURST), keyed on the JWT's id claim; tool errors never leak internals (mask_error_details).

• The server speaks plain HTTP — put it behind a reverse proxy for TLS.