outlook-desktop-mcp

Turn your running Outlook Desktop into an MCP server. No Microsoft Graph API, no Entra app registration, no OAuth tokens — just your local Outlook and the authentication you already have.

Any MCP client (Claude Code, Claude Desktop, etc.) can then send emails, manage your calendar, create tasks, handle attachments, and more — all through your existing Outlook session.

Quick Start

1. Install (requires Python 3.12+):

pip install outlook-desktop-mcp

2. Register with Claude Code:

claude mcp add outlook-desktop -- outlook-desktop-mcp

3. Open Outlook and start a Claude Code session. That's it — tools are available immediately.

How It Works — Platform Routing

When the server starts, it checks which operating system it is running on and takes one of two paths:

                        outlook-desktop-mcp starts
                                  |
                          sys.platform check
                         /                  \
                   "win32"                "darwin"
                      |                      |
              ┌───────┴────────┐    ┌────────┴────────┐
              │  server.py     │    │  server_mac.py   │
              │  COM Bridge    │    │  AppleScript     │
              │  (29 tools)    │    │  Bridge          │
              │                │    │  (22 tools)      │
              └───────┬────────┘    └────────┬─────────┘
                      |                      |
              OUTLOOK.EXE via         Microsoft Outlook
              COM / STA thread        via osascript
                      |                      |
              Exchange / M365         Exchange / M365

Both paths use your locally running Outlook app and its existing authenticated session. No cloud credentials, no Graph API tokens — the server inherits whatever account Outlook is signed into.

Why two paths?

Windows Outlook (Classic) exposes a rich COM automation interface — the Outlook Object Model (MSOUTL.OLB). This has been the standard way to programmatically control Outlook on Windows for over 20 years. It provides deep access to mail rules, categories, MAPI properties, and the full folder hierarchy.

Mac Outlook does not support COM. Instead, it exposes an AppleScript dictionary that can be driven via the osascript command. The AppleScript interface covers the core operations — email, calendar, tasks — but does not expose rules, categories, or certain advanced MAPI features. This is a limitation of what Microsoft chose to include in Outlook for Mac's scripting dictionary, not a limitation of this project.

The server is structured as two parallel implementations with identical tool names and signatures, so MCP clients see the same interface regardless of platform. Tools that are not available on a given platform are simply not registered.

Requirements

Windows

• Outlook Desktop (Classic) — the OUTLOOK.EXE that comes with Microsoft 365 / Office. The new "modern" Outlook (olk.exe) does not support COM

• Python 3.12+ (x64 or ARM64)

• Outlook must be running when the MCP server starts

Both x64 and ARM64 Windows are supported. On ARM64, all dependencies (pywin32, mcp, pydantic-core, cryptography, cffi, rpds-py) have prebuilt win_arm64 wheels — see the ARM64 install notes below for the one extra pip flag you need.

Outlook "Programmatic Access" security prompts

When the MCP server first touches Outlook's COM API, Outlook may show a dialog: "A program is trying to access email address information stored in Outlook" (the Object Model Guard / Programmatic Access prompt). This is Outlook's protection against malicious automation.

You have three options:

1. Click "Allow access for 10 minutes" every time you start a session. Fine for casual use.

2. Get the antivirus status to "Valid" in File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings > Programmatic Access. When that line reads Valid, the "Never warn me about suspicious activity" radio becomes selectable and the prompts go away. On most personal machines with current Defender this works out of the box.

3. Apply the registry policy in docs/suppress-outlook-oom-prompts.reg. From an elevated PowerShell or Command Prompt (Win+X → Terminal (Admin)), run:

   reg import "C:\path\to\outlook-desktop-mcp\docs\suppress-outlook-oom-prompts.reg"

   Then fully quit Outlook (check Task Manager for stray OUTLOOK.EXE processes) and reopen it. This writes AdminSecurityMode=3 and approves all PromptOOM* categories under HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Security, which Outlook honors regardless of AV status. On Intune/MDM-managed corporate devices, HKCU\Software\Policies\...\Outlook is locked and the HKLM keys may be overwritten on next policy sync — if reg import fails or the prompts come back, ask IT to push the equivalent settings via Group Policy.

Windows 11 ARM64 note: Defender does not register with Outlook's IOfficeAntiVirus interface on ARM64, so Trust Center shows "Antivirus status: Invalid" and the "Never warn me about suspicious activity" radio stays greyed out even when Outlook is launched as Administrator. Option 2 is unavailable on ARM64; the reg import from option 3 is the only durable suppression path.

macOS

• Microsoft Outlook for Mac — version 16.x or later

• Python 3.12+

• Outlook must be running when the MCP server starts

Required macOS permissions

The first time a tool runs, macOS will show two permission prompts that you must approve:

1. Privacy & Automation — a system dialog asks: "python3.12 wants to control Microsoft Outlook". Click Allow to let the server send AppleScript commands to Outlook.

2. Accessibility — to read your Exchange/M365 inbox, the server uses macOS UI scripting (System Events). This requires Accessibility access for python3.12:

   • Open System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility

   • Find python3.12 in the list (it appears after the first prompt)

   • Toggle it on

   Without Accessibility enabled, calendar, tasks, and local folder tools will work, but listing Exchange inbox messages will return empty results.

Both permissions are one-time setup — macOS remembers them for future sessions.

Available Tools by Platform

Email

Calendar

Tasks

Attachments

Categories, Rules, Out of Office (Windows only)

These tools rely on COM-specific APIs (MAPI property accessors, the Rules object model, and the Categories collection) that Outlook for Mac does not expose through AppleScript.

Total: 29 tools on Windows, 22 tools on macOS.

Architecture Details

Windows: COM Bridge (com_bridge.py)

All Outlook COM operations run on a dedicated thread using the Single-Threaded Apartment (STA) model, as required by COM. The async MCP event loop dispatches tool calls to this thread via a queue and awaits results, keeping COM threading rules respected and the MCP protocol non-blocking.

MCP tool call (async)
  → bridge.call(func, args)
    → queued to STA thread
      → func(outlook, namespace, args) executes on COM thread
    → result returned via threading.Event
  → JSON response back to MCP client

Each tool's inner function receives the live Outlook.Application and MAPI.Namespace COM objects and works directly with the Outlook Object Model — GetItemFromID, CreateItem, Items.Restrict with DASL filters, and so on.

macOS: AppleScript Bridge (applescript_bridge.py)

Each tool call builds an AppleScript string and executes it as a subprocess via osascript. There is no persistent connection — every call is stateless.

MCP tool call (async)
  → build AppleScript string
    → asyncio.create_subprocess_exec("osascript", "-e", script)
    → parse stdout text into structured data
  → JSON response back to MCP client

Each tool constructs a single AppleScript that fetches all needed data in one osascript call (no per-message subprocess loops). Results come back as delimited text, which the server parses into the same JSON structure the Windows server produces.

Key differences from Windows:

• Entry IDs on macOS are numeric (e.g. 42), not hex strings. They identify items within their folder context.

• Folder references use AppleScript's locale-independent keywords (inbox, sent items, drafts, deleted items) rather than localized folder names.

• Search uses AppleScript's whose clause (e.g. messages whose subject contains "query") instead of DASL filters.

• User input is escaped for safe embedding in AppleScript strings to prevent script injection.

Install from Source

Windows (x64)

git clone https://github.com/Aanerud/outlook-desktop-mcp.git
cd outlook-desktop-mcp
python -m venv .venv
.venv\Scripts\activate
pip install pywin32 "mcp[cli]" -e .
python .venv\Scripts\pywin32_postinstall.py -install

Register from source using the launcher script:

claude mcp add outlook-desktop -- powershell.exe -Command "& 'C:\path\to\outlook-desktop-mcp\outlook-desktop-mcp.cmd' mcp"

Windows (ARM64)

The [cli] extra of mcp transitively pulls in cryptography, and pip's default resolver may pick a version that lacks a win_arm64 wheel — which then fails to build because it requires a Rust toolchain plus OpenSSL. Install without the cli extra and force wheels-only resolution:

git clone https://github.com/Aanerud/outlook-desktop-mcp.git
cd outlook-desktop-mcp
& "C:\Program Files\Python312-arm64\python.exe" -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1
python -m pip install --upgrade pip
python -m pip install --only-binary=:all: pywin32 mcp
python -m pip install --no-deps -e .
python .venv\Scripts\pywin32_postinstall.py -install

The base mcp package is sufficient for running the stdio server — the [cli] extra is only needed for the mcp developer CLI tools (mcp dev, mcp inspector), which aren't used at runtime.

Register from source the same way as x64:

claude mcp add outlook-desktop -- powershell.exe -Command "& 'C:\path\to\outlook-desktop-mcp\outlook-desktop-mcp.cmd' mcp"

macOS

git clone https://github.com/Aanerud/outlook-desktop-mcp.git
cd outlook-desktop-mcp
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install "mcp[cli]" -e .

Register from source:

claude mcp add outlook-desktop -- /path/to/outlook-desktop-mcp/.venv/bin/python -m outlook_desktop_mcp

Usage Examples

Once registered, just talk to Claude naturally:

• "Show me my 10 most recent inbox emails"

• "Read the email from Taylor about MLADS"

• "Send an email to alice@example.com about the project update"

• "What's on my calendar this week?"

• "Create a meeting with bob@example.com tomorrow at 2pm for 30 minutes"

• "Save the attachment from that email to my Downloads folder"

• "Create a task to review the quarterly report, due Friday, high importance"

• "Mark that email as read and move it to archive"

Windows-only examples:

• "What categories do I have? Set this email to 'Follow-up'"

• "List my mail rules"

• "Am I set as Out of Office?"

Why Not Microsoft Graph?

Project Structure

outlook-desktop-mcp/
  src/outlook_desktop_mcp/
    entrypoint.py            # Platform detection → routes to correct server
    server.py                # Windows MCP server (29 tools, COM automation)
    server_mac.py            # macOS MCP server (22 tools, AppleScript)
    com_bridge.py            # Async-to-COM threading bridge (Windows)
    applescript_bridge.py    # Async osascript execution (macOS)
    tools/
      _folder_constants.py   # Outlook enums and constants (Windows)
    utils/
      formatting.py          # Email/event/task data extraction (Windows)
      errors.py              # COM error formatting (Windows)
      applescript_helpers.py # AppleScript escaping, date formatting (macOS)
  tests/
    phase1_com_test.py       # Email COM validation
    phase3_mcp_test.py       # Email MCP test
    calendar_com_test.py     # Calendar COM validation
    calendar_mcp_test.py     # Calendar MCP test
    extras_com_test.py       # Tasks/attachments/categories/rules/OOF COM test
    extras_mcp_test.py       # Tasks/attachments/categories/rules/OOF MCP test
  outlook-desktop-mcp.cmd   # Windows launcher script
  pyproject.toml

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the branching strategy and development setup.

License

See LICENSE file.