Claude writes the email. Then you copy it, open your mail, find the thread, paste it in, fix the formatting and press Send. The writing took ten seconds and the sending took two minutes.
Whether Claude can do that last step depends on which account you send from and what you have connected.
What Claude can send on its own
| Your account | Claude's own connectors | Claude with alfred_ |
|---|---|---|
| One Gmail account | Send, reply and forward since August 2026, with approval on by default | Send, reply and forward, after you approve |
| Two or more Gmail accounts | One Google account at a time | Every connected account, from the right address |
| Microsoft 365 (work) | Reads Outlook; writes are a setting an admin turns on | Send, reply and forward, including shared mailboxes you can open |
| Outlook.com, Hotmail, Live | Personal accounts can't connect | Send, reply and forward |
| iCloud, Yahoo, AOL, Zoho, other IMAP | No Anthropic connector | Send, reply and forward |
How to let Claude send from your own address
- Connect your accounts to alfred_. Gmail and Google Workspace, Outlook (personal or work), iCloud Mail, Yahoo, AOL or any IMAP mailbox. Up to six.
- Add alfred_ to Claude. In claude.ai or Claude Desktop, open Settings, then Connectors, and add a custom connector named alfred_ with the address
https://get-alfred.ai/api/mcp. In Claude Code, runclaude mcp add --transport http alfred https://get-alfred.ai/api/mcp, then/mcpand Authenticate. Step-by-step: Connect Claude. - Tick sending when you sign in. Reading is the default. Sending is its own permission, so you choose it on purpose. Leave it unticked and Claude can still save drafts to your real Drafts folder for you to send yourself.
The same person can have one connection that sends and one that only reads. Shown with sample data.
What a send looks like
You: Forward Maya’s signed contract to accounting@harborpoint.co and say it’s for the March retainer.
Claude: Here’s the forward from your work account, with “Signed contract.pdf” attached: “Hi, forwarding Maya’s signed contract for the March retainer.” To: accounting@harborpoint.co. Send it?
You: Yes.
Claude: Sent.
Illustrative exchange. Names and addresses are invented.
Three things happen that you’d otherwise do by hand: the right thread is found, the attachment rides along, and it goes from the account Maya wrote to. The check before sending lives in alfred_, not in the chat, so Claude can’t talk its way past it.
It can also attach a file from Google Drive, OneDrive or SharePoint (“send Tom the Q3 proposal from my Drive”), or one Claude just made in the chat.
What it won’t do
- Send without your yes. Every send, reply, forward and invitation is shown to you first.
- Delete anything. No emails, events or to-dos.
- Send on its own while you’re away from the chat. Claude acts when you ask.
That last one is where alfred_ itself comes in. It reads every incoming email, keeps a list of the replies you owe, and texts you when a client needs an answer. You text back what to say, and a 👍 sends it from your address.
alfred_ by text, between Claude chats. Shown with sample data.
You need an alfred_ account for any of this. Plans start at $29.99 a month with a 7-day free trial.
