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Building an Apple Mail Channel Plugin for OpenClaw

I recently built and published a plugin that integrates Apple Mail with OpenClaw (an AI automation platform), allowing AI agents to monitor and respond to emails with per-thread session isolation.

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🎯 The Problem

OpenClaw and Hermes are powerful AI automation platforms, but they lacked native Apple Mail integration on macOS. Users wanted to:

• Monitor multiple email accounts
• Have AI agents automatically respond to emails
• Maintain conversation context across email threads
• Keep different email conversations isolated

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💡 The Solution

I built @jehadurre/openclaw-apple-mail

• a channel plugin that:
• Connects to Apple Mail via AppleScript
• Creates isolated sessions per email thread
• Processes HTML emails intelligently
• Supports multi-account configuration
• Includes security features like sender allowlists

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🛠️ Technical Stack

TypeScript - Type-safe development #

AppleScript - Native macOS Mail.app integration #

HTML Processing - DOMPurify, jsdom, sanitize-html, marked #

Schema Validation - Zod for configuration validation

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📦 Key Features

1. Per-Thread Session Isolation

Each email conversation gets its own isolated session, preventing context mixing:

2. Multi-Account Support

Configure multiple email accounts with independent settings:

3. Security Features

• Sender allowlist per account
• HTML sanitization
• AppleScript sandboxing

4. Smart HTML Processing

Automatically converts HTML emails to clean markdown:

• Table extraction and conversion
• Removes tracking pixels
• Sanitizes malicious content
• Preserves formatting for AI agents

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📚 Publishing Journey

I published this plugin to multiple platforms:

1. npm Registry

2. GitHub

• Full source code
• Issue tracking
• Contribution guidelines
• MIT License

3. ClawHub

4. OpenClaw Skill

Created a comprehensive setup skill:

The skill includes:

• Installation guide
• 5 configuration templates
• Troubleshooting solutions
• Best practices

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🎓 Lessons Learned

1. Compiled Output Matters

ClawHub requires compiled JavaScript, not just TypeScript source. I had to:

• Get compiled output from production deployment
• Include index.js

in the package

• Update package.json

to reference the compiled file

2. Skills Enhance Adoption

Creating a separate "skill" package that teaches users how to set up and use the plugin significantly improves the user experience.

3. Multi-Platform Publishing

Publishing to npm, GitHub, ClawHub, and creating documentation on GitHub Pages maximizes discoverability.

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🚀 Usage Example

Here's how users set it up:

Step 1: Install

Step 2: Configure

Add to openclaw.json

:

Step 3: Start

That's it! OpenClaw now monitors your email and can respond automatically.

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📊 Architecture

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🔐 Security Considerations

Sender Allowlist: Only process emails from trusted senders #

HTML Sanitization: Remove malicious content from HTML emails #

AppleScript Sandboxing: Limited access to Mail.app APIs #

No Credential Storage: Uses existing Apple Mail accounts

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🌟 Future Enhancements

Planned features:

- [ ] Smart reply suggestions
- [ ] Attachment handling
- [ ] Email categorization
- [ ] Custom email templates
- [ ] Integration with other channels

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📖 Resources

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🤝 Contributing

Contributions welcome! Check out the Contributing Guide.

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💬 Feedback

Have you used AI automation with email? What features would you like to see? Let me know in the comments!

About Me: I'm Md. Jehadur Rahman (Emran), a developer passionate about AI automation and productivity tools. Find me on GitHub and my website.

License: MIT - Free to use, modify, and redistribute!

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