# AI-powered email agent that syncs your emails via IMAP

> Source: <https://github.com/peterretief/emailai/tree/main>
> Published: 2026-08-26 09:28:40+00:00

An AI-powered email agent that syncs your emails via IMAP and provides intelligent analysis using OpenAI, Anthropic, or local Ollama.

**🔄 IMAP Sync**- Mirror your email account locally with batch syncing**👁️ IDLE Support**- Real-time email detection (when server supports it)**🤖 AI Analysis**- Summarize, categorize, and extract insights from emails**📤 SMTP Send**- Send replies generated by AI**🔍 Search**- Full-text search across all synced emails**📦 Local Storage**- Emails stored as JSON, easy to inspect and backup**🔧 Configurable**- Works with Gmail, Outlook, or any IMAP server

- Go 1.21 or higher
- An email account with IMAP access enabled
- (Optional) AI API key for smart features

```
# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/peterretief/emailai.git
cd emailai

# Build
go build -o emailai .

# Or install directly
go install github.com/peterretief/emailai@latest
# Copy the example config
cp config.example.json config.json

# Edit with your settings
nano config.json
```

- Enable 2-Step Verification at
[https://myaccount.google.com/security](https://myaccount.google.com/security) - Generate an App Password at
[https://myaccount.google.com/apppasswords](https://myaccount.google.com/apppasswords) - Use the 16-character app password (not your regular password)

```
{
  "imap": {
    "host": "imap.gmail.com",
    "port": 993,
    "username": "you@gmail.com",
    "password": "your-app-password",
    "tls": true
  },
  "smtp": {
    "host": "smtp.gmail.com",
    "port": 587,
    "username": "you@gmail.com",
    "password": "your-app-password",
    "tls": true
  }
}
```

Choose one of the supported AI providers:

**OpenAI:**

```
{
  "ai": {
    "enabled": true,
    "provider": "openai",
    "api_key": "sk-your-key-here",
    "model": "gpt-4"
  }
}
```

**Anthropic:**

```
{
  "ai": {
    "enabled": true,
    "provider": "anthropic",
    "api_key": "sk-ant-your-key-here",
    "model": "claude-3-opus-20240229"
  }
}
```

**Ollama (Local, free):**

Install Ollama from [https://ollama.com](https://ollama.com), then pull a local model:

```
ollama pull llama3.1:8b
```

Make sure the Ollama server is running:

```
ollama serve
```

Configure EmailAI to use the local model:

```
{
  "ai": {
    "enabled": true,
    "provider": "ollama",
    "api_key": "",
    "model": "llama3.1:8b",
    "max_tokens": 2048
  }
}
```

Good free local model choices include `llama3.1:8b`

, `qwen2.5:7b`

, and `mistral:7b`

. For email analysis and structured extraction, `qwen2.5:7b`

is also worth trying:

```
ollama pull qwen2.5:7b
```

Then set `ai.model`

to `qwen2.5:7b`

.

```
# Sync all emails
./emailai -action sync

# Sync specific folder
./emailai -action sync -folder INBOX

# Force a complete rescan when needed
./emailai -action sync -full-sync

# Run as continuous sync server
./emailai -action serve

# Analyze emails with AI
./emailai -action analyze -query "meeting"

# List contacts found in downloaded mail
./emailai -action contacts -limit 100

# View sync stats
./emailai -action stats

# Search email text and locally extracted OCR text
./emailai -action search -folder INBOX -query "driver licence"

# Restrict the search to image attachments
./emailai -action search -folder INBOX -attach jpg -query "driver licence"

# Send test email
./emailai -action send
```

For large Gmail mailboxes, increase the batch size in `config.json`

so each sync run imports more messages:

```
{
  "sync": {
    "maildir_path": "",
    "store_path": "./emails",
    "max_batch_size": 1000
  }
}
```

Run sync repeatedly until each folder is up to date:

```
while ./emailai -action sync; do sleep 10; done
```

Press `Ctrl+C`

to stop the loop.

```
emailai/
├── main.go              # Entry point and CLI
├── config/
│   └── config.go        # Configuration management
├── sync/
│   └── sync.go          # IMAP sync engine
├── store/
│   └── store.go         # Local email storage
├── ai/
│   └── ai.go            # AI processing (OpenAI/Anthropic/Ollama)
├── smtp/
│   └── smtp.go          # Email sending
├── config.example.json  # Example configuration
└── README.md
```

| Option | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
`imap.host` |
IMAP server hostname | `imap.gmail.com` |
`imap.port` |
IMAP server port | `993` |
`imap.username` |
Email address | - |
`imap.password` |
App password | - |
`imap.tls` |
Use TLS encryption | `true` |
`smtp.host` |
SMTP server hostname | `smtp.gmail.com` |
`smtp.port` |
SMTP server port | `587` |
`ai.enabled` |
Enable AI features | `false` |
`ai.provider` |
AI provider (`openai` , `anthropic` , `ollama` ) |
`openai` |
`ai.model` |
Model to use | `gpt-4` |
`sync.interval` |
Sync interval in seconds | `300` |
`sync.folders` |
Folders to sync (empty = all) | `[]` |
`sync.max_batch_size` |
Max emails per sync batch | `100` |
`sync.store_path` |
Local storage path | `./emails` |
`sync.timeout_seconds` |
Maximum time for one IMAP command | `120` |
`sync.maildir_path` |
Local Maildir root managed by mbsync/isync | empty |
`filters.exclude_newsletters` |
Exclude matching newsletter/marketing emails from local search and analyze results | `false` |
`filters.exclude_from` |
Sender substrings to exclude when newsletter filtering is enabled | newsletter/no-reply/etc. |
`filters.exclude_subject` |
Subject substrings to exclude when newsletter filtering is enabled | newsletter/digest/etc. |
`filters.exclude_body` |
Body substrings to exclude when newsletter filtering is enabled | unsubscribe/etc. |
`ocr.enabled` |
Run local OCR on image attachments | `false` |
`ocr.command` |
OCR executable | `tesseract` |
`ocr.languages` |
Tesseract language list | `eng` |
`ocr.timeout_seconds` |
Maximum OCR runtime per image | `60` |
`ocr.max_bytes` |
Maximum image size sent to OCR | `10485760` |

When `ocr.enabled`

is true, image attachments are processed locally with Tesseract during sync. Extracted text is stored in the local email JSON and included in search. Attachment image bytes are not stored by the OCR feature.

Normal syncs store a per-folder IMAP UID watermark and fetch only newer messages. Use `-full-sync`

to rescan every message, for example after enabling OCR or changing message parsing.

Set `filters.exclude_newsletters`

to `true`

to keep obvious newsletters, promotions, and automated bulk mail out of `search`

and `analyze`

results. Tune the `exclude_from`

, `exclude_subject`

, and `exclude_body`

lists for your mailbox.

To use `mbsync`

/`isync`

for mailbox synchronization, set `sync.maildir_path`

to the Maildir root. When this is configured, the application reads local Maildir files and does not connect to IMAP. Run `mbsync`

first, then run `./emailai -action sync`

to import new messages and process OCR.

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

- Fork the repository
- Create your feature branch (
`git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature`

) - Commit your changes (
`git commit -m 'Add amazing feature'`

) - Push to the branch (
`git push origin feature/amazing-feature`

) - Open a Pull Request

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the [LICENSE](/peterretief/emailai/blob/main/LICENSE) file for details.

- Never commit your
`config.json`

file (it's in`.gitignore`

) - Use App Passwords, not your regular email password
- Keep your AI API keys secure
- The
`emails/`

directory contains your synced emails - treat it as sensitive data

[go-imap](https://github.com/emersion/go-imap)- IMAP library for Go[go-imap-idle](https://github.com/emersion/go-imap-idle)- IDLE extension[go-message](https://github.com/emersion/go-message)- Email message parsing

If you have any questions or issues, please open an issue on GitHub.