Ranked roundup · Gmail
Best MCP Server for Gmail
Google now ships an official MCP server for Gmail, which changes the shape of this list. It runs as a Developer Preview: a remote endpoint at gmailmcp.googleapis.com with ten tools that search, read, label, and draft — but do not send. That gap keeps the community options relevant. The most complete of those is taylorwilsdon's Google Workspace MCP, at 3,098 GitHub stars and a last push of August 30, 2026, with fifteen Gmail tools including send. The historically most popular standalone server, GongRzhe's Gmail AutoAuth MCP, has been archived on GitHub since its last push in August 2025 and appears here with that flag attached. Managed platforms — Composio and Zapier — handle OAuth for you, at the cost of placing a third party between your agent and your inbox. Rankings come from what we verified on September 1, 2026: official status, commit recency, stars, auth model, and documented tool coverage. Nobody paid for placement.
Facts checked September 1, 2026 · ranked on verifiable criteria · placement is never for sale
Founder, Automation Squad ·
The ranking
- Official · Google
Read, triage, label, and draft workflows where vendor support and a Google-hosted endpoint matter more than sending
10 tools per Google's reference docs: search_threads, get_thread, get_message, list_labels, list_drafts, create_draft, create_label, and label/unlabel for both threads and messages. No send tool.
Remote, Google-hosted (https://gmailmcp.googleapis.com/mcp/v1); you bring a Google Cloud project with the Gmail API and Gmail MCP API enabled, plus your own OAuth client · OAuth 2.0 with narrow scopes: gmail.readonly and gmail.compose
- Developer Preview, offered through the Google Workspace Developer Preview Program — not yet a GA product
- Cannot send email — create_draft is as far as it goes; no delete or archive tools either
- Setup is not one-click: you need a Google Cloud project, two enabled APIs, an OAuth consent screen, and your own OAuth client ID/secret
- Connecting from Claude requires a paid plan (Pro, Max, Team, or Enterprise) and adding it as a custom connector
- Google's own docs warn about indirect prompt-injection risk when an agent reads mailbox content
- Community
Agents that need to actually send Gmail, or work across Docs, Drive, and Calendar in the same session, self-hosted on your own OAuth client
15 Gmail tools — search, send, drafts, labels, filters, attachments — among 120+ tools across 12 Workspace services (Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Chat, Forms, Tasks, Contacts); progressive tool tiers limit what an agent can reach
Self-hosted: local over stdio (uvx/pip) or containerized streamable HTTP for remote/multi-user use; maintainer also sells a managed cloud instance from $5/mo · OAuth 2.0/2.1 against your own Google Cloud OAuth client; multi-user support, stateless deployment, and gateway passthrough auth; read-only mode available · MIT · 3,098★
- Community project — not affiliated with or supported by Google
- You must create and manage your own Google Cloud OAuth client; consent screens left in Testing status expire refresh tokens after 7 days per Google's OAuth docs
- Full deployment spans 12 Workspace services — a much larger permission surface than a Gmail-only server unless you use the tool tiers and read-only mode
- Community
Teams that want the widest documented Gmail coverage with managed OAuth and zero hosting
61 documented Gmail tools — fetch, search, send, reply, drafts, label and filter management, batch modify/delete, vacation settings, contact retrieval — plus 2 triggers for new and sent mail
Fully managed remote endpoint — a Tool Router session generates an MCP URL your client connects to over HTTP · Managed OAuth2 with automatic token refresh and central revocation; API-key auth to Composio itself; production deployments are expected to bring their own OAuth credentials
- Closed-source hosted platform — a third party sits between your agent and your mailbox
- Free to start, but production use expects your own OAuth credential configuration and usage-based pricing beyond the free tier is not spelled out on the toolkit page
- No public GitHub repo for the hosted Gmail server itself, so maintenance can't be independently verified the way it can for open-source options
- Community
Existing Zapier customers adding Gmail to an agent without standing up any new infrastructure
8 triggers (new email, new attachment, new labeled email, email matching search) and 12 write actions including send, drafts, forwarding, and label management, plus search actions — mirroring Zapier's Gmail integration
Fully managed remote endpoint at mcp.zapier.com; auto-provisions from apps already connected to your Zapier account · OAuth sign-in as a connector in chat clients, or a connection token for programmatic integrations
- Each successful tool call consumes two tasks from your Zapier plan — costs scale with how chatty your agent is
- Closed-source hosted platform between your agent and your mailbox
- Tool surface is shaped by Zapier's Gmail actions rather than the raw Gmail API, so some operations (e.g. fine-grained thread handling) aren't available
- Community
Legacy setups that already run it; not recommended for new installs
Send with attachments, HTML/multipart email, read with MIME handling, search, full label management, mark read/unread, move, delete, batch operations, attachment downloads
Self-hosted local Node process (npx / Smithery install) · OAuth 2.0 against your own Google Cloud client with an auto-launching browser flow; credentials stored locally · MIT · 1,165★
- Repository is archived on GitHub (read-only) — no further fixes or security patches will land
- Last push was August 6, 2025 — over a year stale as of this page's verification date
- Still requires your own Google Cloud OAuth client, with the same 7-day Testing-mode token expiry as other self-hosted options
- Was the most popular standalone Gmail server (1,165 stars), which is exactly why the archived status needs saying — search results still point here
Gmail MCP servers compared
| Server | Maintained by | Runs | Auth | License |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gmail MCP server (official, Google) | Remote, Google-hosted (https://gmailmcp.googleapis.com/mcp/v1); you bring a Google Cloud project with the Gmail API and Gmail MCP API enabled, plus your own OAuth client | OAuth 2.0 with narrow scopes: gmail.readonly and gmail.compose | — | |
| Google Workspace MCP (taylorwilsdon) | Community | Self-hosted: local over stdio (uvx/pip) or containerized streamable HTTP for remote/multi-user use; maintainer also sells a managed cloud instance from $5/mo | OAuth 2.0/2.1 against your own Google Cloud OAuth client; multi-user support, stateless deployment, and gateway passthrough auth; read-only mode available | MIT |
| Composio Gmail MCP | Community | Fully managed remote endpoint — a Tool Router session generates an MCP URL your client connects to over HTTP | Managed OAuth2 with automatic token refresh and central revocation; API-key auth to Composio itself; production deployments are expected to bring their own OAuth credentials | — |
| Zapier Gmail MCP | Community | Fully managed remote endpoint at mcp.zapier.com; auto-provisions from apps already connected to your Zapier account | OAuth sign-in as a connector in chat clients, or a connection token for programmatic integrations | — |
| Gmail AutoAuth MCP (GongRzhe) | Community | Self-hosted local Node process (npx / Smithery install) | OAuth 2.0 against your own Google Cloud client with an auto-launching browser flow; credentials stored locally | MIT |
How to choose
Pick the official Gmail MCP server if reading, triaging, and drafting is enough and you want Google's own endpoint touching your mail — accepting the preview label and the missing send tool. Pick Google Workspace MCP (taylorwilsdon) if your agent needs to actually send email, or reach Calendar and Drive in the same session, and you can stomach creating a Google Cloud OAuth client. Pick Composio if you want managed OAuth and the widest documented Gmail tool set without hosting anything. Pick Zapier only if you already pay for Zapier — each successful call consumes two tasks. Skip the archived GongRzhe server for new installs.
How this ranking works
Every server here is real and was checked against its repository or vendor documentation on the date above — stars and licenses come from the GitHub API, not from memory. Order reflects verifiable criteria only: official support, maintenance recency, adoption, auth model, and documented capability coverage. We do not run paid placements, and we list every caveat we find, including the unflattering ones.
Common questions
- Is there an official MCP server for Gmail?
- Yes. Google runs a remote Gmail MCP server at gmailmcp.googleapis.com/mcp/v1 as a Developer Preview, with ten tools covering search, reading, labels, and drafts. It cannot send email — create_draft is the limit.
- What does setup and authentication actually involve?
- Every self-hosted option — and the official server — requires a Google Cloud project with the Gmail API enabled and your own OAuth 2.0 client. If your consent screen stays in Testing status, Google expires refresh tokens after seven days, so you re-authenticate weekly until you publish the app. Managed platforms like Composio and Zapier skip all of this by using their own verified OAuth apps.
- Can these servers send email?
- The official Google server cannot; it only creates drafts. Google Workspace MCP, Composio, and Zapier all expose send actions. Whether you want an LLM sending mail unsupervised is a separate question — Google's own docs warn about prompt-injection risk when agents read mailbox content.
- Why is the most-starred standalone Gmail server ranked last?
- GongRzhe's Gmail AutoAuth MCP (1,165 stars) was archived on GitHub after its last push in August 2025. It still installs and runs, but archived means read-only: no fixes and no security patches. We don't recommend pointing new mailbox integrations at unmaintained code.
MCP servers we build
Automation Squad publishes its own open-source MCP servers and agent skills, documented with the same rules this ranking uses.