AI-powered email agent that syncs your emails via IMAP

EmailAI, an open-source Go-based email agent, syncs emails via IMAP and uses AI from OpenAI, Anthropic, or local Ollama to summarize, categorize, and extract insights, with support for SMTP sending and full-text search. The tool, available on GitHub, requires Go 1.21 or higher and an IMAP-enabled email account, and it stores emails locally as JSON for easy backup and inspection.

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.