# PyApple MCP Tools
[](https://pepy.tech/projects/pyapple-mcp)
[](LICENSE)
[](https://modelcontextprotocol.io)
A Python implementation of Apple-native tools for the [Model Context Protocol (MCP)](https://modelcontextprotocol.com/docs/mcp-protocol), providing seamless integration with macOS applications.
There are two front ends over the same integrations: an MCP server for Claude
Desktop and other MCP clients, and `pyapple`, a command line for driving the same
ten tools from a shell. They share one permission policy, so what you allow in
one you have allowed in both.
**88 operations across ten tools.** They are listed in full under
[The tools](#the-tools), and what they refuse to do is under
[Limits worth knowing](#limits-worth-knowing) — read that before you rely on any
of them.
If you are an agent about to drive the CLI rather than a person reading about it,
`.claude/skills/pyapple/SKILL.md` in this repository is the operator guide: which
call to make first, how to read the exit status, and which refusals to route
around versus report.
## Features
- **Messages**: find conversations, read a thread whole, search message text,
list what a thread was sent, and send — text or a file. Reads go through
`chat.db` directly and are scoped by *chat*, so a group thread comes back as the
group rather than as one participant's share
- **Notes**: search, list, read, create, append, rename and rewrite — with a gate
that **refuses** any note whose content a round trip would destroy — plus
filing a note into another folder, and folders themselves: list them, create
one, rename one, delete one. `create` refuses a folder name that does not exist
rather than making a folder out of a typo, and the listing is how you find out
what does; `folder-delete` refuses a folder holding notes unless you pass their
exact count, because what it deletes does not go to Recently Deleted
- **Contacts**: search by name, go the other way from a number or address to a
person, and add, correct or delete a card. Reads and writes both go through the
Contacts framework; nothing launches Contacts.app
- **Mail**: unread, header search, **body** search, read one message whole by id,
a whole **thread** in order, what is **attached** and whether the bytes are
here, **coverage** — what each account can actually answer about — send, reply,
forward, the drafted form of each of those three, mark read, file, delete, and
list mailboxes and accounts. Reads come from the local Envelope Index rather
than through the app
- **Reminders**: list, search, create, update, complete, uncomplete and delete,
plus creating and deleting the lists themselves, through EventKit
- **Calendar**: list and search occurrences of recurring events, list calendars,
**coverage** — what range of events each calendar actually holds —
**find free gaps rather than events**, create with repeats, alarms and
invitees, reschedule, move and delete
- **Maps**: location search and directions through MapKit — no window, no
Automation grant, and Maps never launches. Favourites and Guides are not
available at all and say so
- **Shortcuts**: list the user's own automations, list the library's folders,
describe one, open it in the editor, run it. Through `/usr/bin/shortcuts` — a
subprocess and **not** an Apple Event, so it costs no Automation grant and
launches nothing
- **Presence**: whether now is a moment to interrupt — Focus mode, the frontmost
app, idle seconds, whether the screen is locked. Read-only, and structurally
so: **there is no setter and there must not be one**
- **Doctor**: why a tool just failed. Which macOS grants this process holds, per
tool, and where to click for the missing ones. Nothing it does can launch an app
or raise a permission prompt
- **Command line**: the same ten tools from a shell, with `--json` output that
says how much of the answer came back, and an exit status you can branch on —
see [Command Line](#command-line)
- **Permissions**: one policy string, honoured identically by the server and the
CLI, and an optional [two-phase gate](#confirming-a-send-before-it-goes) that
makes any send show what it would send first — see
[Permission Policy](#permission-policy)
## Quick Installation
### Automated Setup (Recommended)
```bash
# Install pyapple-mcp
pip install pyapple-mcp
# Run the setup helper to configure Claude Desktop
pyapple-mcp-setup
```
The setup helper will:
- Find your pyapple-mcp installation
- Locate your Claude Desktop config file
- Automatically add the configuration
- Display helpful setup information
### Manual Installation
1. **Install pyapple-mcp**:
```bash
pip install pyapple-mcp
```
2. **Configure Claude Desktop** by editing `~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json`:
```json
{
"mcpServers": {
"pyapple": {
"command": "pyapple-mcp"
}
}
}
```
3. **Restart Claude Desktop** to load the new configuration.
### What gets installed
Three commands land on your `PATH`:
| Command | What it is |
| --- | --- |
| `pyapple` | the command line — the ten tools from a shell |
| `pyapple-mcp` | the MCP server, which is what an MCP client launches |
| `pyapple-mcp-setup` | the helper that writes the Claude Desktop config |
Nothing else is needed to use the CLI; `pip install pyapple-mcp` is the whole
installation.
```bash
pyapple --version
pyapple --help
```
## Usage Examples
Through the MCP server you ask in plain language; through the CLI you type the
operation. The first two headings below are the former, the third is the latter.
### Basic Commands
```
Can you send a message to my sister saying "Hello from Claude!"?
```
```
Find all notes about "AI research" and summarize them
```
```
Create a reminder to "Buy groceries" for tomorrow at 5pm
```
```
When am I free for an hour on Thursday?
```
```
Get directions from "Apple Park" to "San Francisco Airport"
```
### Advanced Workflows
You can chain commands together for complex workflows:
```
"Find the email with the booking reference in it, and put the reference in my trip note"
```
### From a shell
The same operations are available without an MCP client at all:
```bash
pyapple messages conversations --query "book club"
pyapple mail unread --limit 5 --since 2026-08-01
pyapple calendar free --from-date 2026-08-06 --to-date 2026-08-08 --duration 60
pyapple presence snapshot
pyapple doctor report
```
See [Command Line](#command-line) below.
## Limits worth knowing
Every one of these was measured against the real applications, and each is
something you need to know **before** relying on a tool rather than after. They
are not bugs waiting to be fixed; where a thing cannot be done, the operation
still exists and refuses out loud, because an assistant that has no operation for
what it was asked will reach for the nearest one that does exist.
### Almost nothing launches an app any more — but Mail, Messages and Notes still do
Reminders, calendar and contacts **writes** moved from Apple Events to
EventKit and `CNSaveRequest`; maps search and directions moved to MapKit. Those
four tools now need only the privacy grant their reads already held, and the
separate *"control Automation"* grant they used to demand is gone. Verified with
Calendar, Reminders and Maps all quit: listing calendars, listing reminder lists,
finding free time, searching for a place and routing between two of them launched
none of the three.
What still dispatches Apple Events, and therefore still launches its app and
still needs Automation:
| Tool | What needs Automation |
| --- | --- |
| `notes` | **everything**, reads included — `move` and `delete` too |
| `mail` | `send`, `reply`, `draft`, `replyDraft`, `forward`, `forwardDraft`, `move`, `delete`, `open`, `markRead`, `mailboxes`, and `unread --mark-read`. `reply`, `replyDraft`, `forward`, `forwardDraft` and anything with `--html` need an **Accessibility** grant on top |
| `messages` | `send`, `sendAttachment`, `open` |
| `calendar` | `open`, and `create --invitees` |
| `reminders` | `open` |
| `contacts`, `maps`, `shortcuts`, `presence`, `doctor` | nothing |
`mail thread` and `mail attachments` are on the index-and-filesystem side with
the other reads: no Apple Event, Mail is not launched, and nothing is marked
read. `reminders listCreate` and `listDelete` are EventKit like the rest of that
tool.
**`shortcuts` is a fourth route into macOS and the cheapest one here.** It goes
through `/usr/bin/shortcuts`, a plain subprocess. Measured against the binary
Apple ships: `codesign -d --entitlements -` shows no
`com.apple.security.automation.apple-events`, and `otool -L` finds no AppleEvents
and no Carbon — it reaches its daemon over `mach-lookup`. `shortcuts list` and
`shortcuts run <a name that does not exist>` were both run with Shortcuts.app not
running; neither prompted and neither started it. `shortcuts open` is the
exception and puts the editor on screen, which is what `calendar open` and
`reminders open` cost.
Two honest qualifications, because that is easy to over-read. *We* pay no
permission; the **shortcut** does — one whose actions touch Contacts or Photos
raises those prompts against Shortcuts, and this package cannot enumerate what a
shortcut will reach, so it cannot warn you either. And a shortcut containing an
interactive action will put UI on screen and block until somebody answers, which
is why `run` has a timeout at all.
**Notes is the exception that cannot be fixed.** Notes ships no framework API at
all, so AppleScript is the only route in and Notes.app launches for every
operation including a search and including `folders`. That is a platform limit,
not an omission.
`mail accounts` came off that list. It used to ask Mail whether each account was
enabled; it now reads the same index `coverage` reads and reports what this Mac
actually holds per account, which is the consequence a caller cares about where
"disabled" was only a cause of it. It falls back to asking Mail only if the index
names no accounts at all, which on a machine with mail means the read failed
rather than that there are none. `mail coverage` and `mail readMessage` never
touch Mail either — index and filesystem only.
`maps pin` is the odd one out: it opens a Maps window, but through `open(1)` and
a `maps://` URL rather than an Apple Event, so it needs no Automation grant. It
opens *behind* what you are working in unless you pass `--show`. The window
cannot be closed again from here — measured, `close window 1` blocks until the
Apple Event times out and leaves the window where it was — so a pin is a one-way
door.
### Notes editing refuses more than it accepts
Notes' HTML serialiser and its HTML parser do not agree, so **the body Notes
hands you is not a body it will take back**. Every edit here is a whole-body
rewrite, because Notes offers nothing else, so a read-modify-write is
destructive. Measured, writing a body back unchanged:
| Content | What the round trip does to it |
| --- | --- |
| images | destroyed outright — 2 `<img>` before, 0 after, three clean trials |
| attachments | destroyed, even under a pure identity write |
| links | `<a href="…">text</a>` comes back as `<u>text</u>`: the text survives, the URL does not |
| headings | five input forms of `<h1>` all stored as a bold span |
| checklists | ten candidate markups all stored as plain `<ul><li>`, every tick cleared |
So `append`, `rename`, `replace` and `setBody` **refuse** any note carrying that
content, name what it holds, and change nothing. There is deliberately no
override flag: a flag saying "yes, lose the images" would be set by a model that
has never seen the note, on behalf of someone who has, and the loss is invisible
afterwards — the attachment does not go to the Trash, it is gone.
**On the development machine 0 of 56 existing notes pass that gate** — 40 carry
an attachment, 36 an image, 19 a heading, 13 a link, and 6 are password
protected. That is the honest number, and it is why the refusal is worth
documenting rather than discovering. Notes this tool creates always pass, so
`create` then `append` works as you would expect.
`create` and `delete` are unaffected by that gate: neither reads a body back.
`create` has a refusal of its own, though. **It used to make any folder it was
handed**, silently, so a misspelled folder name did not fail — it started a
second folder and filed the note there, reporting success. It now refuses a
folder that does not exist and names the ones that do. `notes folders` is the
listing that lets you check first, and `notes folder-create` is how you make one
on purpose; the tool's own default folder is the one exemption, since a caller
that named no folder cannot be told the folder it did not ask for is missing.
The refusal is the right way round because of what it costs to be wrong either
way. Refusing when a new folder was genuinely wanted costs one further call to
`folder-create`, immediately, with the error naming what the folder could have
been. Creating on a typo costs a folder in your sidebar, and two more calls —
`notes move` to file the note where it belonged and `folder-delete` to remove
what the typo made.
### `notes folder-delete` destroys what is in it
Every other delete in this package is recoverable from a Trash or a Recently
Deleted. This one is not, and that is measured rather than assumed: a disposable
folder holding two notes was deleted, the trash's own note count was **3 before
and 3 after**, and a search of `every note` — which does reach the trash, since
the same query found a trashed note by name in the same run — matched **0** of
the two deleted bodies. The notes are gone, not filed away.
So the refusals are the feature, and there are four of them:
- **A folder holding notes is refused** unless you pass `--delete-notes N` with
the folder's **exact** count. `N` is re-checked against the live store, so a
count that has moved since you read it refuses rather than proceeds. You
cannot pass the flag without having counted first, and that interlock is the
only thing between a mistyped folder name and an unrecoverable loss.
- **A folder with subfolders is refused outright**, with no override at all.
Deleting a container leaves the app in a state where `id of` that container
raises, and there is no argument that gets past this.
- **The trash and any account's default folder are refused** for what they are.
There is one of each per account and nothing here needs to remove them.
- **The result carries `may_return: True`** rather than a bare success, because
a synced account may put the folder back. Measured on both account types on
one machine: an Exchange folder was listed again inside 15 seconds and was
still there five minutes later, and iCloud resurrection has been reproduced
five times — but neither reproduces every time, which is why the caveat is
unconditional rather than naming an account. The script re-queries after
deleting and reports what it saw, so what you get is what the store said, not
what the command intended.
The message says only what happened. Delete an **empty** folder and it warns
that a synced account may restore it and stops there; the sentence about notes
not being in Recently Deleted appears only when notes were actually
destroyed, and `notes_recoverable` is `null` rather than `false` when there
were none to recover.
```bash
pyapple notes folders # read the count first
pyapple notes folder-delete "Scratch" --delete-notes 2
```
### Four of seven maps operations are permanently impossible
Maps.app ships **no scripting dictionary** — there is no `.sdef` anywhere in it
— and Favourites and Guides have no public API and no readable on-disk copy; the
data is CloudKit-backed and opaque. So `save`, `listGuides`, `createGuide` and
`addToGuide` cannot be implemented at all.
They report failure and hand back a durable `maps.apple.com` link instead, which
is the part you can actually keep: stored in a note or a reminder it survives and
opens in Maps on every Apple device.
```bash
$ pyapple maps list-guides; echo $?
failed: Apple Maps guides cannot be listed. macOS exposes no API for them and keeps no readable copy on disk — the data lives in iCloud in a private format. This is not an empty list of guides; it is no answer at all. Open Maps and look under Library to see them.
1
```
`listGuides` in particular must never answer with an empty list: a store that
cannot be read has to be distinguishable from a store with nothing in it.
**There is also no current location.** A non-bundled process cannot hold the
Location Services grant, so "directions from here" has no answer and
`directions` always needs an explicit `--from`.
### A shortcut's actions cannot be read, which is why `run` is a `send`
`/usr/bin/shortcuts` has four subcommands — `run`, `list`, `view`, `sign` — and
Apple's own help for the third reads *"View a shortcut in Shortcuts."* It opens
the editor. **There is no subcommand that describes what a shortcut does**, so
`shortcuts describe` reports `actions: null` and `actions_known: false` and says
why, rather than returning an empty list. A shortcut that could not be described
must not read as a shortcut that does nothing.
(`~/Library/Shortcuts/Shortcuts.sqlite` carries a `ZACTIONSDESCRIPTION` column,
which is the obvious way round it. It was populated for **2 of 7** shortcuts on
the library this was written against, so it is a cache and not a source: reading
it would answer "what does this do" for some shortcuts and silently for none of
the others. It is not read.)
That is also the whole argument for `run` being classified `send` rather than
`write`. An effect nobody can read has to be assumed to be the worst one it could
have, and a shortcut can trivially send mail. The decisive part is what the
alternative would do to a promise this package already makes:
`PYAPPLE_READ_ONLY=1` is documented as `*=read` and it is the flagship safety
setting, and if `run` were anything below `send` that setting would permit
arbitrary user code that can text a stranger. Classified too high it costs
somebody an extra grant; classified too low it sends the email.
One more trap, closed rather than documented: `shortcuts list --folder-name`
**ignores a folder it does not recognise and returns the entire library at exit
0**. Measured — `-f "Starter Shortcuts"` gave 3, `-f none` gave 4, and
`-f "@@@nope@@@"` gave all **7**, with nothing on stderr. So `pyapple shortcuts
list --folder` validates the name against the folder listing first and refuses
with the real names, at exit `2`. A mistyped filter that came back with
everything you own would be a wrong answer wearing a success.
### Focus costs Full Disk Access, and its format is undocumented
Four of the five `presence` operations cost the user **nothing at all** — that is
measured rather than assumed, from an unsigned `.app` launched through
LaunchServices so that its responsible process was itself and it held no TCC
grant of any kind. That control was denied `chat.db` with `EPERM`, which is what
makes the rest of the row mean something: from it, `NSWorkspace.frontmostApplication()`,
`CGEventSourceSecondsSinceLastEventType` and `CGSessionCopyCurrentDictionary` all
answered.
`presence focus` is the exception. Focus state lives in
`~/Library/DoNotDisturb/DB`, which is behind **Full Disk Access**, and Apple
documents neither the directory nor the JSON in it. So every presence value
carries a `provenance` field, and Focus's says `reverse-engineered` while the
other three say `documented`. The result also reports the schema version it found
and whether that version is one this package has seen, so a macOS update that
changes the format shows up as an unrecognised schema rather than as a confident
wrong answer.
`INFocusStatusCenter`, the one public documented Focus API, was tried and
rejected: it returns only `isFocused` as an optional Bool and **never names the
mode**, and it is gated on an `NSFocusStatusUsageDescription` in an `Info.plist`,
which a `pip`-installed console script does not have. It would cost a new
dependency and an app bundle to learn strictly less.
`presence snapshot` is the one to poll and the only one that survives a partial
failure: every field carries its own `available`, so a field that could not be
read stays distinct from a field that is genuinely off, and the envelope carries
`unavailable` and `complete`. Without Full Disk Access a snapshot still answers
about the app, the idle clock and the screen.
**There is no write half of this tool and there must not be one.** Setting Focus
or moving a window needs an Accessibility grant — the broadest permission macOS
hands out, unscopeable, with effects nothing can verify afterwards because a
synthetic keystroke leaves no record distinguishable from a real one. Sensing
costs one grant a person can reason about; acting costs the machine. For the same
reason there is no clipboard read here: it is not an attention signal, and it is
the highest-value thing on the machine to exfiltrate.
### `mail delete` refuses the accounts where it would not be recoverable
Mail's `delete` verb is what the Delete key is: on an ordinary account it files
the message in that account's Trash, which is a `write` — private, and undoable.
**But that is a per-account setting, not a fact about Mail.** `Mail.sdef`
declares `move deleted messages to trash` on the `account` class, and with it off
a delete *erases*. Nothing in the verb's name says so and the caller cannot see
the setting, so the script reads it off the message's own account **before**
touching anything and refuses when it is off, pointing at `move` instead. The
same refusal covers a message whose account could not be determined at all: an
unverifiable claim of recoverability is not a weaker claim, it is a false one.
On the path that does go ahead, "recoverable" is qualified rather than promised.
Two further account settings — `empty trash on quit` and `empty trash frequency`
(0 means on quit, -1 means never, anything else is days) — decide how long the
Trash keeps it, and both are read and both are reported. "It is in the Trash" is
a promise with an expiry.
`mail move` is the reversible neighbour and it refuses three things rather than
guessing: a destination that names no mailbox (with the real ones listed — it will
not create a mailbox out of a typo, which would sync a new folder to somebody's
phone), a name that matches more than one (`Sent` on a machine with three accounts
is three mailboxes), and a destination it could not *check*, since listing
mailboxes is itself an Apple Event and an empty answer there means "Mail did not
answer" rather than "there are none".
### Whether an attachment is on this Mac is a `stat`, and the answer is tri-state
Both attachment operations report presence by looking for the file, not by
believing the database, and neither will report "not there" when it means "cannot
say".
`messages attachments` carries `available_locally`, and it has three values.
Measured across 5,426 rows on a real store: 35 of the 5,404 that name a path have
no file at that path, and two of those 35 carry the same `transfer_state` as the
5,365 that do — so the column cannot be trusted and presence is a `stat`. `None`
means no path was recorded at all, which is unknowable rather than false.
`mail attachments` reports names and sizes, and **sizes are not in the index**:
the `attachments` table has four columns and none of them is a size, so a size can
only come from the file. On the store measured, 2,755 of 8,101 indexed
attachments — 34.0% — have their bytes on this Mac, the same split `coverage`
reports for bodies. **A size that is not known is `null`, never `0`.** A
zero-byte attachment and one whose bytes were never downloaded are different
facts, `on_disk` says which you have, and the note says how many of each.
### Every mail `send` leaves a copy in the sender's Drafts
Mail autosaves any outgoing message it can attribute to an account. Measured
directly, by building a message that was never saved and never sent: it appeared
in Drafts within 8 seconds and stayed.
**This is known and not fixed.** The copy appears asynchronously, so an
in-script cleanup runs too early, and a later one would mean this package
deleting from your Drafts by subject match. It is documented rather than papered
over because the failure it causes is a person seeing the draft, concluding the
mail never went, and sending it again.
### `mail searchBodies` is partial by construction, and the split is per account
Bodies are not in the Envelope Index, so a body search has to open `.emlx` files
on disk — and those exist for only part of the store. On the development machine
that is 14,532 files against 45,654 indexed rows, about 32%.
**That single number was the misleading way to say it**, which is why `coverage`
exists. The three accounts on that machine are nothing like each other: one holds
31,143 indexed messages and **zero** bodies, and the other two are at 100% of
14,245 and of 279. So "32%" is the mean of a zero and two hundreds, and a body
search that finds nothing across the first account is not a failed search —
there was nothing there to search inside. Run `mail coverage` before you conclude
anything from an empty body search.
It is its own operation rather than a flag on `search` for exactly that reason: a
flag would hide the partiality behind a list that cannot say what it missed. The
result carries `candidates` (rows in scope), `scanned` (rows the budget reached),
`with_body`, `without_body` and `scan_truncated`, so a caller can see what was
not read rather than inferring it from a short list.
```bash
pyapple mail search-bodies "booking reference" --since 2026-07-01 --scan-limit 500
```
`--scan-limit` is how many bodies to open, 500 by default. Decoding the 500
newest bodies is 2.25s and 2,000 is 5.98s, so it is a real budget and the default
is the one that answers in about two seconds. Raising it reads more of the store;
no setting makes a body appear that was never downloaded.
**Always give it a `--since` or an `--account`.** Unfiltered, the candidate set on
that machine is 31,192 and the newest of them come from the account with no
bodies at all, so the scan spends its whole budget on messages that cannot match.
A truncated scan says so — `scan INCOMPLETE` in the text, `scan_truncated` in
`--json` — and a truncated zero is not the same fact as a complete one.
### `coverage` is the answer to "why did that find nothing"
Two operations exist only to be called *before* a read, because an empty result
and a nonexistent thing look identical otherwise.
`mail coverage` reports, per account: how many messages are indexed, how many
have a body on this Mac, that as a percentage, and the dates the index spans. It
reads the index and walks the account directories — no Apple Event, so **Mail is
not launched**, unlike `mail mailboxes`. `--mailboxes` asks the same question one
level down, per mailbox: a mailbox listed with `0 indexed` is empty, and a
mailbox *absent from the listing* is one this Mac has never synced. Both report
zero unread and they are not the same fact. Bodies are deliberately not reported
per mailbox and cannot be — an `.emlx` is filed under its account, not its
mailbox — so body coverage stays an account-level figure.
```bash
pyapple mail coverage
pyapple mail coverage --mailboxes
```
`calendar coverage` is the same idea one app along. `calendars` lists names and
says which are writable; nothing said what is *in* them, so there was no way to
learn the bounds of the store without guessing a window and inferring from what
came back. It reports per calendar — **empty ones included** — how many
occurrences fall in a window it states in the result, how many distinct
repeating `series` those occurrences are (a weekly item is 52 occurrences of one
thing), and the earliest and latest it saw.
Two properties are worth knowing before you read the numbers. `earliest` and
`latest` are exact **inside** the scanned window and nothing of the sort outside
it, which is why the window is a field. And each calendar carries
`before_window` / `after_window`, counted from one extra segment scanned either
side: a non-zero one is a fact — there is more, and you are looking at the edge
of the question rather than the edge of the data. A zero is weaker and means only
that the adjacent segment holds nothing.
The default window is 20 years back and 5 years forward. On a store of 15
calendars that is 7 segments, 4,788 occurrences and 0.378s; a whole century is 33
segments and 1.08s, so widening it is affordable. `seconds` in the result is the
real elapsed time of the call that produced it.
```bash
pyapple calendar coverage
pyapple calendar coverage --from-date 2026-01-01 --to-date 2026-12-31
```
### `mail --mailbox INBOX` used to answer about the wrong mail
Gmail stores each message once in `[Gmail]/All Mail` and records membership in a
labels table, so the Gmail INBOX mailboxes hold **zero rows**. `unread --mailbox
INBOX` reported 2 unread to a user with 6, and `search --mailbox Sent` found the
Exchange sends and none of the 1,293 Gmail ones. The predicate follows labels
now, and every result says which label matched.
`--account` is fixed in the same place: it was accepted, documented, and then
dropped, so `--account` returned every account's mail. Scoping needs a name-to-uuid
resolution that was never done. An account name nothing matches now raises rather
than silently widening to everything.
This is worth knowing because it changes what a result *means*, not just how many
there are.
### About one contact card in nine cannot be written at all
**20 of 179 cards on the development machine — 11.2% — refuse every write
through the Contacts framework** with Cocoa error 134092, and the refusal is
stable per card rather than intermittent: 5 attempts of 5 fail on an affected
card, 0 of 5 on each control.
Ruled out by driving each one: the fetch key set, staleness, the container or
account, unification and linked cards, images, and the kind of change. **Nothing
`CNContact` exposes tells the two groups apart**, so it cannot be pre-flighted
and retrying is pointless.
The one good property, verified on every failure measured: it is **total, never
partial** — the card is byte-identical afterwards. `add`, `addTo`, `rename` and
`delete` refuse with the cause named and tell you to edit that card in the
Contacts app, which still can.
### `messages schedule` cannot work, and says so
`Messages.sdef` declares exactly three commands — `send`, `login`, `logout` —
and none of them takes a date. The words "schedule", "later" and "delay" appear
nowhere in the dictionary. The `schedule_state` column in `chat.db` looks like a
way in until you notice that every row carrying it also carries a send error.
So `schedule` refuses. It is kept on the surface rather than removed because a
model asked to send something at 7am, finding no such operation, is likely to
reach for `send` — and sending immediately instead of at the requested time is
the failure that would actually hurt.
### Ambiguity is refused, not resolved
`contacts`, `notes` and `reminders` all match by text. When more than one thing
matches, the operation **refuses and names the candidates** rather than picking
one. Completing, deleting or renaming the wrong item makes it vanish with nothing
to explain why, and the caller is the only one who can tell which was meant.
`reminders` gives every result an id for this reason — pass `--id` and the
question does not arise. `calendar`'s writes sidestep it entirely by requiring
`--event-id`, which `list` and `search` print.
### `calendar free` returns gaps, and ignores all-day entries
A list of events is not the answer to "am I free on Thursday": the caller would
have to know the window, subtract every event, know which of them actually
occupy the person, and know the working day. Three of those four are things the
tool knows and the caller does not.
All-day entries do not count as busy unless you pass `--include-all-day`, and
neither do events marked free or cancelled. Without that rule the development
machine reports **zero free time on 211 of the next 365 days**, every one of them
a holiday or a birthday.
```bash
pyapple calendar free --from-date 2026-08-06 --to-date 2026-08-08 --duration 60
```
### `calendar create --invitees` genuinely mails people
Attaching invitees turns an event into a meeting and sends an invitation to each
address, from your account, immediately. It is the one calendar write still on
Apple Events, because `EKParticipant` has no public setter — so it is also the
one that needs an Automation grant. The CLI flag says so in its own help text.
### Two control characters cannot be stored, and you are told when they are dropped
`U+001E` and `U+001F` are reserved. Every refusal and hint this package writes
marks its parameter names with them, so that one sentence in a handler can print
as `--delete-notes` in a shell and `delete_notes` to a model — which means text
that arrives carrying them would be spelled the same way. Measured: a reminder
named `shop ␞account␟ now` was stored verbatim by EventKit and came back out of
the CLI as `Created reminder 'shop --account now'` — a flag this tool never
offered, written by whoever typed the reminder.
So they are removed from **every** argument on every operation, before anything
is stored or matched — note titles and bodies, folder names, calendar titles,
locations and notes, invitee addresses, reminder names and notes, contact
fields, mail subjects, bodies and recipients, message text, and search terms.
The write still happens; nothing is refused over two non-printing bytes. What
changed is that it is no longer silent:
```bash
$ pyapple reminders create --name "shop ␞account␟ now"
note: Removed 2 reserved control characters (U+001E, U+001F) before storing: 2 from --name. What was stored differs from what was supplied — …
Created reminder 'shop account now'
```
Under `--json` the same fact is a `removed_control_characters` object mapping
each parameter to a count, present only when something was removed. Over MCP the
sentence is appended to the tool's answer, since that surface renders text and
nothing else.
Nothing else in your text is altered. Quotes, backslashes, emoji and
bidirectional overrides are stored exactly as sent; a terminal whose encoding
cannot render a character will print `\uXXXX` for it, but that is the display,
not the store.
## Command Line
`pyapple` drives this Mac's Messages, Mail, Contacts, Reminders, Calendar, Notes,
Maps and Shortcuts from a shell, and answers two questions about the machine
itself — `presence` and `doctor`. It is the same integration code the MCP server
calls — not a reimplementation — so the two cannot drift.
```bash
pyapple --help
pyapple mail --help
pyapple mail draft --help
```
Every tool and every operation has its own `--help`, and the tool-level help is
where the useful caveats live.
Start with `messages conversations` rather than a chat id you do not have: it
finds a thread by a person's name, a group's name, or by naming two people who
share one, and prints the id `messages read` wants.
```bash
pyapple messages conversations --query "book club"
```
```
2 conversations:
[67] Book Club (group: Ada Byron, Grace Hopper, Alan Turing) - 412 messages, last 2026-08-04 19:22, 3 unread
[104] Ada Byron (1:1) - 88 messages, last 2026-07-30 08:11
```
```bash
pyapple messages read --chat-id 67 --limit 20
pyapple contacts lookup --phone "+15550000000"
pyapple reminders list --list-name School
pyapple maps directions --from "Apple Park" --to "San Francisco Airport"
```
### The tools
88 operations. The **class** column is what
[the permission policy](#permission-policy) gates on, and it is worth reading
alongside the operation: `mail open` is a write because it marks the message
read, while `reminders open` is a read because showing a reminder changes no
reminder.
Fifteen operations are spelled with a hyphen on the command line and in camelCase
in the policy string and the MCP schema. **Both spellings work as CLI
subcommands** — with one exception, `messages send-attachment`, which does not
answer to `sendAttachment`. The camelCase form is canonical, and it is the one
`pyapple perms` prints. One more differs outright: `pyapple mail read` is the
operation the schema and the policy call `readMessage`, because `read` was the
name a person reaches for and `mail read` cannot be confused with anything else
on the command line.
#### `contacts` — 6
| Operation | Class | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `search` | read | find people by name, or list everyone with a number |
| `lookup` | read | number or address to person — the direction you need when something arrives from a number |
| `add` | write | add a contact |
| `addTo` / `add-to` | write | add a number or address to an existing card, rather than making a second card for the same person |
| `rename` | write | correct or complete a contact's name |
| `delete` | write | delete a contact |
#### `notes` — 14
| Operation | Class | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `search` | read | search notes |
| `list` | read | list notes |
| `view` | read | print one note in full |
| `folders` | read | list note folders, with their nesting and each one's own note count |
| `create` | write | create a note in a folder that already exists |
| `append` | write | add a line to an existing note |
| `rename` | write | rename a note |
| `replace` | write | replace text inside a note |
| `setBody` / `set-body` | write | replace a note's whole body |
| `move` | write | file a note in another folder |
| `folderCreate` / `folder-create` | write | create a folder, optionally nested inside another |
| `folderRename` / `folder-rename` | write | rename a folder, leaving everything in it alone |
| `folderDelete` / `folder-delete` | write | delete a folder — see [the interlock](#notes-folder-delete-destroys-what-is-in-it) before using it |
| `delete` | write | delete a note |
**`move` is the one note write that is not behind the round-trip gate, and that
is correct rather than an oversight.** AppleScript can move a note object without
reading or rewriting its body, so the script contains no `body of` at all and
there is nothing for the gate to protect — the images, links and checklists it
exists to save are never touched. Applying it anyway would refuse exactly the
notes most worth filing, and it is why `move` is also the only write here that
works on a password-protected note. An unknown destination folder is refused with
the real ones named.
`append`, `rename`, `replace` and `setBody` refuse notes they cannot edit safely
— see
[Notes editing refuses more than it accepts](#notes-editing-refuses-more-than-it-accepts),
which also covers why `create` refuses an unknown folder.
A folder's `notes` count is its own and excludes its subfolders'. That is Notes'
own accounting rather than a choice made here — measured, `count of notes` on a
parent whose child separately held one note returns one — and it is the more
useful of the two, because a folder's own count is what changes when you file
something into it. `--include-deleted` adds Notes' trash, which is off by default
since a listing is what you pick a target from.
A folder rename is durable, which is worth stating because the note case is not:
Notes re-derives a note's name from the first line of its body, so a renamed note
reverts the moment anything writes to it. A folder has no body to derive from,
and driving it confirmed the difference — the folder's id was unchanged, and a
fresh `osascript` process looking it up by that id read back the new name, still
did so after a note was created inside it.
#### `messages` — 9
| Operation | Class | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `conversations` | read | find conversations by name, group or participant |
| `read` | read | read one conversation, whole |
| `search` | read | search the text of messages |
| `attachments` | read | [what a thread was sent, and whether the bytes are here](#whether-an-attachment-is-on-this-mac-is-a-stat-and-the-answer-is-tri-state) |
| `unread` | read | unread incoming messages across every conversation |
| `open` | write | show a conversation in Messages, which also clears its badge |
| `send` | send | send a message |
| `sendAttachment` (CLI: `send-attachment`) | send | send a file into a thread that already exists |
| `schedule` | send | [refuses](#messages-schedule-cannot-work-and-says-so) — Messages has no such verb |
`send --chat-id` is the only way to reach a group: sending to one participant's
number starts a separate one-to-one, and nothing in the result would say the
group never saw it.
**`send-attachment` is the most dangerous operation in the package** — it takes a
path from a caller that may have been reading untrusted text a moment ago and puts
those bytes into somebody else's hands. Three things stand in the way and each
refuses rather than adjusts. The file must resolve into your home directory, a
temporary directory or a mounted volume, must not be hidden or under `~/Library`
(bar the attachments you were sent), and must be an existing, readable, non-empty
regular file — judged *after* symlinks are followed. The recipient must be a
conversation that already exists here: unlike `send` there is no `buddy`
fallback, because `buddy` resolves an address that was never in a conversation,
and that is exactly the route by which a handle lifted out of an injected email
becomes a recipient. And a timeout raises rather than reporting failure, since a
script killed mid-send may already have dispatched the file.
There is deliberately **no caption**. A file and a caption are two Apple Events
and the second can fail after the first has arrived, which leaves the caller
unable to say what the other person is looking at. Send the file, then call
`send` for the words: two calls, two answers, and it is obvious which failed. The
result reports the resolved absolute path that was actually sent, not the name it
was asked for.
`read` used to be "the most recent N, with no way to tell". It reports `total`
and `truncated` now, and `--since` / `--until` are a half-open window —
`since <= date < until` — so "what did we say in March" is one call rather than a
walk. Paging backwards is the same mechanism: the result carries `next_until`,
and you pass it back as `--until`. It is deliberately **not** an offset, because
an offset is counted from the end of a *live* conversation: one message arriving
mid-walk shifts every later page and the caller both repeats and skips with no
way to notice. The trade is one duplicate at each boundary rather than a silent
gap — driven against the real store, two pages of 20 on each of the three busiest
threads overlapped by exactly the one boundary message. It is not a way to fetch a
whole conversation; the busiest thread measured holds 11,608 messages.
`search` matches the text of messages and is the operation that did not exist:
finding a thread previously meant already knowing who was in it, since
`conversations` matches chat names and participants and never text. **Both
storage columns are searched, and the second is the important one** — `text` is
populated on 21,415 of 84,402 rows and the other 62,749 live entirely in
`attributedBody`, a binary typedstream. Searching `text` alone found 171 messages
for one term where searching both found 402, so 43% recall with nothing to say
the rest existed. A blob match is only a *candidate* — a substring can land in the
typedstream's own class names — so every candidate is decoded and confirmed
against the text a reader would see. Measured at 0.07s over 84,402 rows.
#### `mail` — 19
| Operation | Class | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `unread` | read | unread mail |
| `search` | read | search headers — sender, subject, recipients, attachment names |
| `searchBodies` / `search-bodies` | read | search what the messages say, not just headers |
| `readMessage` (CLI: `mail read`) | read | one message whole, by the id every other read prints |
| `thread` | read | a whole conversation, oldest first, without launching Mail |
| `attachments` | read | [what is attached to one message, and whether the bytes are here](#whether-an-attachment-is-on-this-mac-is-a-stat-and-the-answer-is-tri-state) |
| `coverage` | read | [what each account, or each mailbox, can answer about](#coverage-is-the-answer-to-why-did-that-find-nothing) |
| `mailboxes` | read | list mailboxes |
| `accounts` | read | list mail accounts, disabled ones marked |
| `markRead` / `mark-read` | write | mark a message read without opening anything; `--unread` for the reverse |
| `open` | write | show a message in Mail, which also marks it read |
| `move` | write | file a message in a mailbox that already exists |
| `delete` | write | [move a message to its account's Trash](#mail-delete-refuses-the-accounts-where-it-would-not-be-recoverable), or refuse |
| `draft` | draft | compose an email into Drafts without sending |
| `replyDraft` / `reply-draft` | draft | compose a reply into Drafts without sending |
| `forwardDraft` / `forward-draft` | draft | compose a forward into Drafts without sending |
| `reply` | send | reply in the thread of a message you name |
| `forward` | send | pass a message on to somebody else |
| `send` | send | send an email |
`thread` answers the question neither `readMessage` nor `search` does — *what has
already been said here, and did I reply*. It selects on `conversation_id`, a
column the index already carries, so it is one indexed predicate rather than a
call per message: **no Apple Event, Mail never launches, nothing is marked read.**
Re-threading by subject line instead would be wrong in both directions, measured
on a real 45,628-message index: it merges 2,516 subject lines shared by more than
one conversation (the worst single subject is shared by 417) and splits 354
conversations that legitimately change subject partway through, both silently. It
is label-aware, so a Gmail thread living in `[Gmail]/All Mail` comes back whole
rather than as whichever part one mailbox happened to hold. Pass
`--conversation-id`, or `--id` with any message in the thread.
`forward` and `forwardDraft` are two operations rather than one with a flag, for
the reason `reply` and `replyDraft` are: the policy gate reads
`(tool, operation)` and never sees an argument, so a flag would have put composing
and sending behind one grant. A covering note goes in through the pasteboard and
is verified in the compose window before anything is sent, because `content` is
not a property of `outgoing message` and writing to it discards the thing being
forwarded — see [Drafting a reply](#drafting-a-reply). A forward with **no** note
is allowed, unlike an empty reply: the payload is the thing being forwarded, so an
empty body is a complete message rather than the defect.
`readMessage` **marks nothing**: no read status, no `open`, no Apple Event of any
kind. The index is read read-only, the body comes off the disk, Mail is not
launched, and a message that was unread stays unread — which is the difference
between reading somebody's mail and rearranging it. `max_chars` caps the body at
20,000 and `body_truncated` says whether it bit. Where a body is not on this Mac
it gets a sentence naming the account rather than an empty string.
**Mail ids are Envelope Index ROWIDs and Mail reassigns them.** Observed inside a
single session with nothing unusual happening, ids for the same mail moved from
roughly 58,000 to roughly 102,000 because Mail reindexed in the background. So
take an id from the read in front of you and spend it immediately; do not carry
one across sessions. If `mail read --id` reports no such message, re-run the
search rather than retrying the number — the tool will not silently re-resolve a
stale id for you, because re-running a search can land on a *different* message
and quietly reading the wrong mail is worse than an error you can see.
#### `reminders` — 11
| Operation | Class | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `list` | read | list reminders, with `--due-before` / `--due-after` |
| `search` | read | search names and notes |
| `lists` | read | name the reminder lists that exist |
| `open` | read | open a reminder in the app |
| `create` | write | create a reminder |
| `update` | write | change a reminder's name, notes, due date or priority |
| `complete` | write | mark a reminder done |
| `uncomplete` | write | mark one not done again |
| `delete` | write | delete a reminder |
| `listCreate` / `list-create` | write | make a new reminder list |
| `listDelete` / `list-delete` | write | delete a list and everything on it — see the interlock below |
`uncomplete` is its own operation rather than only a flag (`complete --undo`
still works, and is the same code path — `complete(completed=False)`, which is how
the ambiguity refusal and the not-found behaviour stay identical between doing and
undoing). Without it the route a caller takes is delete-and-recreate, which
silently loses the due date, the priority and the notes.
`listCreate` **refuses rather than choosing an account** when more than one could
hold the list. A list in the local account never leaves the Mac; a list in iCloud
reaches the user's phone. Those are different answers to "add a shopping list",
and the one who asked cannot see which they got. It also refuses a duplicate name
— not because Reminders minds, it does not, but because every operation here
resolves a list by title, so a second list of the same name makes both of them
unaddressable from this tool.
`listDelete` copies `notes folder-delete`'s interlock exactly, because the loss is
the same kind: `removeCalendar_` has no trash behind it and nothing in this
package can put the reminders back. A non-empty list is refused unless you pass
`--delete-reminders N` with its **exact** count, and the count is re-taken
immediately before the delete so a number that has moved refuses rather than
destroys. A boolean could be set by a model that never looked at the list; a
number cannot be guessed. The default list is refused for what it is.
#### `calendar` — 11
| Operation | Class | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `list` | read | events in a window, with recurring ones expanded into their occurrences |
| `search` | read | search titles, locations and notes |
| `calendars` | read | list available calendars |
| `coverage` | read | [what each calendar can answer about](#coverage-is-the-answer-to-why-did-that-find-nothing), empty ones included |
| `free` | read | [find gaps, not events](#calendar-free-returns-gaps-and-ignores-all-day-entries) |
| `open` | read | open an event in the app |
| `create` | write | create an event, with repeats, alarms and [invitees](#calendar-create---invitees-genuinely-mails-people) |
| `reschedule` | write | change when an event happens; `--span series` for all of them |
| `alarms` | write | set or clear an event's alarms |
| `move` | write | move an event to another calendar |
| `delete` | write | delete an event |
`list` and `search` take `--include-attendees` (who is coming and whether they
have accepted) and `--include-details` (the repeat rule and alarms). Both are off
by default: attendees roughly triple the read, and attendee names and addresses
are other people's contact details, so they are pulled into a transcript only
when asked for.
#### `maps` — 7
| Operation | Class | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `search` | read | search for locations; `--near` and `--radius-meters` to bias it |
| `directions` | read | driving, walking or transit, with ETA and turn-by-turn |
| `listGuides` / `list-guides` | read | **unsupported** — no API, no on-disk copy |
| `pin` | write | drop a pin, opening a Maps window that only you can close |
| `save` | write | **unsupported** — Favourites are unreachable |
| `createGuide` / `create-guide` | write | **unsupported** |
| `addToGuide` / `add-to-guide` | write | **unsupported** |
#### `shortcuts` — 5
| Operation | Class | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `list` | read | every shortcut, or one folder's |
| `folders` | read | the library's folders |
| `describe` | read | what is knowable about one [without running or opening it](#a-shortcuts-actions-cannot-be-read-which-is-why-run-is-a-send) |
| `open` | read | open one in the Shortcuts editor — the one operation here that puts an app on screen |
| `run` | send | run one and report what it produced |
`folders` is its own operation rather than a flag on `list` because a folder
cannot be run and does not answer to `--folder`: a flag that changes what a row
*is* publishes two schemas under one enum member.
`run --timeout` hitting its limit is an **error**, not a failure report, on the
same argument `utils/applescript.py` makes: a shortcut killed mid-run may already
have done what it was asked. `--input` is staged through a temporary file,
because the Shortcuts CLI's `-i` takes a path and reads nothing from stdin.
```bash
pyapple shortcuts folders
pyapple shortcuts list --folder "Starter Shortcuts"
pyapple shortcuts describe "Start Pomodoro"
pyapple shortcuts run "Start Pomodoro" --timeout 30
```
#### `presence` — 5
| Operation | Class | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `snapshot` | read | all four at once — the one to poll, and the only one that survives a partial failure |
| `focus` | read | which Focus mode is on. [The only one that costs a grant](#focus-costs-full-disk-access-and-its-format-is-undocumented) |
| `app` | read | the frontmost application |
| `idle` | read | seconds since the last input |
| `screen` | read | locked, or a screensaver running |
Every operation is a read and there is no write half. `idle` asks the event
source how long ago the last event was, which is **not** an event tap and needs no
Accessibility grant — that difference is the whole reason an idle clock is in
scope here and a keystroke is not.
```bash
pyapple presence snapshot --json | jq '{focus: .focus.active, idle: .idle.seconds}'
```
#### `doctor` — 1
| Operation | Class | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `report` | read | what macOS is allowing, per tool, and where to click |
**`pyapple perms` reports the policy; `doctor` reports the machine.** They are two
independent gates and a caller that hits a wall cannot otherwise tell which one
stopped it — `mail=read` with no Full Disk Access, and Full Disk Access under
`PYAPPLE_READ_ONLY=1`, both produce "you cannot have that" and the remedies are in
different applications. The report keeps the two answers in separate keys and
never folds them together: a tool macOS has granted and the policy has removed is
not *unavailable*, it is *withheld*, and sending someone to System Settings for it
wastes their time.
**Nothing here launches an app or can raise a permission prompt.** That is why the
obvious probes are not used. `check_app_access` sends `get name` to an app, which
launches it and prompts for Automation on a machine that has never been asked —
the diagnostic causing the thing it diagnoses — so `AEDeterminePermissionToAutomateTarget`
with `askUserIfNeeded=false` is used instead (0.0058s against a running app,
0.0001s against one that is not). Accessibility is read with `AXIsProcessTrusted()`
rather than by asking System Events, which would itself need an Automation grant.
Where answering would need a prompt or a launch, the finding is **undetermined
with its reason attached** rather than reported as missing — "the grant is off"
and "nobody can say" send a user to two different places. Full Disk Access is
inferred from a canary (`TCC.db`, which exists on every Mac and opens only with
FDA, opened and closed and never read) rather than from the store that failed,
because macOS can report a TCC denial as a *missing file* and `chat.db` failing to
open cannot otherwise distinguish a withheld grant from a Messages that has never
run. Nothing is cached between calls: re-running it after you click in System
Settings is the whole recheck story, and a cache would make it lie.
```bash
pyapple doctor report
pyapple doctor report --tool mail --json
```
#### `perms`
Not a tool and not gated: it prints the effective permission policy and where
each part came from. See [Permission Policy](#permission-policy).
### Global flags
| Flag | Effect |
| --- | --- |
| `--json` | emit the structured result as JSON on stdout, and nothing else — rows come back as `{results, total, truncated, more_hint}`, see [`--json`](#--json-and-why-the-statuses-exist) |
| `--read-only` | refuse anything that sends, creates, moves or deletes |
| `--perms SPEC` | narrow permissions for this run — see [Permission Policy](#permission-policy) |
| `--version` | print the pyapple-mcp version |
They are accepted before the tool or after the operation, so both of these work:
```bash
pyapple --json mail unread
pyapple mail unread --json
```
### Alternative flag spellings
Some flags answer to a second name, so that a reasonable wrong guess works
instead of exiting 2. **Every example in this document uses the canonical
spelling** — the one `--help` lists first — and the alias is only there to catch
you; there is one way to write these, not two.
| Command(s) | Canonical | Also accepted |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `calendar list/search/free/coverage` | `--from-date` / `--to-date` | `--since` / `--until` |
| `mail unread/search/search-bodies` | `--since` | `--from-date` |
| `messages conversations/read/search/unread/attachments` | `--since` | `--from-date` |
| `messages read` | `--until` | `--to-date` |
| `reminders list` | `--due-after` / `--due-before` | `--due-from` / `--due-until` |
| `maps directions` | `--from` / `--to` | `--from-address` / `--to-address` |
| `calendar alarms/delete/move/open/reschedule` | `--event-id` | `--id` |
| `calendar alarms` | `--minutes-before` | `--alarm-minutes-before` |
| `calendar move` | `--to-calendar` | `--to` |
| `calendar create` | `--title` | `--name` |
| `messages read/open/send/attachments/send-attachment` | `--chat-id` | `--id` |
| `mail search` | `--conversation-id` | `--thread-id` |
| `mail mark-read` | `--unread` | `--undo` |
| `contacts add-to/delete/rename` | `--name` | `--contact` |
| `reminders create` | `--name` | `--title` |
| `reminders complete` | `--undo` | `--uncomplete` |
| `notes create` | `--title` | `--name` |
| `notes rename` | `--to` | `--new-title` |
| `notes folder-rename` | `--to` | `--new-name` |
| `notes append` | `--text` | `--add` |
Three things this deliberately does **not** do:
- `reminders list --due-after`/`--due-before` do not collapse into
`--since`/`--until`. A reminder has a creation date as well as a due date, so
an unprefixed window here would be genuinely ambiguous about which one it
filters, and an alias that silently picks one is worse than no alias.
- `mail mark-read` and `mail open` select by `--subject`, a substring match,
and have no id form. Aliasing that to `--id` would invite an integer that
silently substring-matches. `mail reply` and `mail reply-draft` **do** take
`--id` as of 1.6.0, as a separate flag rather than an alias: it is the `#N`
every search and unread row prints, and a subject that matches more than one
message is now refused rather than resolved to the most recent.
- Nothing was renamed. Every spelling that worked before still works.
One side effect worth knowing: an alias adds a prefix, so a few *abbreviations*
that used to be unambiguous now are not — `mail unread --f` is `--full-content`
or `--from-date` and says so, and so do `calendar create --n`, `messages read
--t` and `calendar alarms --alarm`. Spell the flag out. Two spellings of the
*same* flag are never ambiguous: `maps directions --fro` still resolves.
### Exit status
The exit status is the contract, and it distinguishes failures that want
different responses from you — fix the command line, grant a permission, or
retry.
| Status | Meaning |
| --- | --- |
| `0` | success |
| `1` | the operation ran and failed |
| `2` | bad command line, including an unparseable `--since` or a permission policy that cannot be read |
| `3` | the store could not be read (usually a permission) |
| `4` | refused by `--read-only` or by the permission policy |
```bash
$ pyapple maps list-guides; echo $?
failed: Apple Maps guides cannot be listed. macOS exposes no API for them and keeps no readable copy on disk — the data lives in iCloud in a private format. This is not an empty list of guides; it is no answer at all. Open Maps and look under Library to see them.
1
$ pyapple mail unread --since "next tuesday"; echo $?
usage: since must be an ISO 8601 timestamp such as '2026-08-05' or '2026-08-05T09:00:00', got 'next tuesday'
2
$ pyapple --read-only notes create --title Groceries --body Milk; echo $?
refused: 'notes create' is a 'write' operation and this policy does not grant it. Run 'pyapple perms' to see the policy and where it came from.
4
```
Every one of those diagnostics went to **stderr**, and stdout stayed empty. That
is the other half of the contract.
`3` has no such example, because there is no harmless way to make macOS refuse a
store you have already been granted. It is the code for a store that could not be
read at all — a permission that was never granted, or an application that is not
set up — and the message begins `cannot read`.
### The same contract over MCP
**A `tools/call` that failed comes back with `isError: true`, and it fails on
exactly the things the CLI exits non-zero on.** The two front ends share one
classifier, so a caller branching on `isError` and a caller branching on `$?`
reach the same verdict about the same request.
| Outcome | CLI status | MCP `isError` |
| --- | --- | --- |
| the call succeeded | `0` | `false` |
| **a read that found nothing** | `0` | **`false`** |
| **a read that was truncated** | `0` | **`false`** |
| the operation ran and failed | `1` | `true` |
| a bad request — missing parameter, unknown list | `2` | `true` |
| the store could not be read | `3` | `true` |
| refused by the permission policy | `4` | `true` |
The two bold rows are the ones worth stating out loud: **an empty result is a
success.** A search that matched nothing, a mailbox with no unread and a folder
with no notes are all answers — the store was read, and the finding is zero. A
truncated listing is a success too; the notice saying how much was cut is
information about a read that worked, not a failure. Treating either as an error
is the same conflation as reporting an unreadable mailbox as an empty one, just
pointing the other way.
The refusal text arrives intact in `content`, because a model has to be able to
act on it — `pass delete_notes=2 to destroy them` is not a diagnostic, it is the
next call. Policy refusals reach MCP earlier than the other four: a forbidden
operation is removed from the tool's `operation` enum, so the request is rejected
against the schema rather than by the tool. It still arrives as `isError: true`.
### `--json`, and why the statuses exist
With `--json`, stdout carries the structured result and nothing else, so it pipes
into `jq` cleanly.
**A command that answers with rows answers with an envelope**, and the rows are
always under `results`:
```json
{
"results": [ ... ],
"total": 3631,
"truncated": true,
"more_hint": "limit=-1"
}
```
```bash
pyapple mail unread --limit 5 --json | jq -r '.results[].subject'
pyapple calendar list --from-date 2026-08-06 --to-date 2026-08-13 --json | jq '.results | length'
pyapple reminders lists --json | jq -r '.results[].name'
# the two facts a bare array could not carry
pyapple calendar list --from-date 2022-01-01 --to-date 2026-12-31 --json | jq '{total, truncated}'
# → { "total": 3631, "truncated": true }
```
**The count travels with the data because otherwise it does not travel at all.**
`calendar list` over that five-year window returns ten events and there are
3,631; before the envelope both came back as a bare array, and ten of 3,631 was
byte-identical to a complete answer of ten. The text rendering had learned to say
`showing 10 of 3631 events` while `--json` went on emitting the array — to the
callers least able to notice, since a script has no reader to be surprised.
`truncated` is stated on **every** listing, including ones that cannot truncate,
so you never have to know which operation you called before you can parse it.
`more_hint` is the argument that returns the rest, in its parameter form
(`limit=-1`); the terminal spells the same fact `--limit -1`.
**One key, two levels, two different facts — so the row-level one was renamed.**
The envelope's `truncated` means *rows were left behind*. A `notes` record also
carries a flag saying *this note's text was cut at the character cap*, and that
one is `content_truncated`, matching what `mail search-bodies` has always called
it. It used to be `truncated`, which was merely confusing inside `results` and
actively wrong on `notes view --json`: a single object is not wrapped, so the
note's own flag sat at the same depth an envelope's would, meaning the opposite
thing. `total_chars` beside it is the note's real length.
`total` is `null` on a read that stopped early **and cannot say what it stopped
short of** — `messages search` stops decoding at the limit, and a cut
`mail search-bodies` scan counts matches only among the messages its budget
reached. `truncated` is `true` in both cases. A `null` total means *uncounted*,
never zero.
**A command that answers with one object is that object, unwrapped** — `mail
read`, `calendar coverage`, `notes view`, and every write. The rule is the
payload's own shape: rows get `.results`, a single record does not. Two objects
carry rows as well as facts about them, and they use the same key: `messages
read` (rows under `results`, alongside `chat`, `ambiguous`, `alternatives` and
`next_until`) and `mail search-bodies` (rows under `results`, alongside
`candidates`, `scanned`, `with_body` and `scan_truncated`).
```bash
# one object, so no envelope
pyapple calendar coverage --from-date 2026-08-01 --to-date 2026-08-31 --json | jq 'has("results")'
# → false
```
**On failure stdout is empty — not an envelope with no rows in it.** A store
that could not be read must never look like a store with nothing in it:
`{"results": [], "total": 0, "truncated": false}` is an answer, and the store
never answered. That distinction is exactly why there are five exit codes rather
than "zero or non-zero", because a caller can branch on `$?` and cannot branch
on prose.
```bash
# `3` and an empty stdout, not `0` and an empty result set
pyapple mail unread --json > out.json || echo "could not read the mailbox"
```
Diagnostics go to stderr in text mode too, so a human watching the terminal still
sees what went wrong while a pipe stays clean.
### Flags with no MCP equivalent
A few things the CLI can do are not in the tool schema, so there is no point
looking for them there:
| Flag | On | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `--all` | `mail reply`, `mail reply-draft` | reply to everyone, not just the sender |
| `--select` | `mail open` | highlight the message in the main window instead of opening its own |
| `--unread` | `mail mark-read` | mark it *unread* instead; the MCP operation only marks read |
| `--mailboxes` | `mail coverage` | report every mailbox. Over MCP, `mailbox` moves the report one level down but only for the mailboxes whose name matches it |
| `--include-deleted` | `notes folders` | include Notes' trash; the MCP operation always leaves it out |
### Drafting a reply
`mail reply-draft` composes the reply into Drafts instead of transmitting it,
and `mail reply --draft` is the same thing under the spelling that shipped in
1.4.0. Both are gated as the operation `replyDraft`, which is `draft`-class, so:
```bash
PYAPPLE_PERMS="mail=read+draft" pyapple mail reply-draft \
--subject "Thursday" --body "Works for me."
```
is allowed, while `pyapple mail reply` under the same policy is refused with
exit `4`. That split is the point: an assistant granted `mail=read+draft` can
answer your mail without being able to send the answer, and most of what an
assistant would compose is a reply rather than a new message.
It cuts the other way too, which is worth knowing before it surprises you:
`mail=read+send` can transmit a reply and cannot file one, because the class
belongs to the operation rather than to the intent behind it.
**A reply always opens a compose window now**, and this is a change in 1.6.0. The
body can only be put into a reply by pasting it — see the Accessibility grant
above — and a paste goes to the frontmost window, so there is no quiet path left.
`--show` no longer suppresses the window; it means *leave Mail in front
afterwards*, and without it the application that was in front is put back. A
drafted reply leaves its window on screen and only you can close it. A delivered
one also leaves a copy in Drafts, which is Mail's autosave and the same litter
`mail send` has always produced.
**Naming the message.** Prefer `--id`:
```bash
pyapple mail search "Thursday"
#102917 [thread 58466] 2026-08-07 11:55:46 Alex <alex@example.com> - Thursday
pyapple mail reply-draft --id 102917 --body-file reply.md
```
`--subject` still works and is a substring match; when it matches more than one
message the reply is refused, before anything is composed, and the candidates are
printed with their ids.
### Drafting mail
New in 1.4.0. `mail draft` files the message into the sending account's Drafts
and **opens no window**:
```bash
pyapple mail draft --to alex@example.com --subject "Re: Thursday" \
--body "Works for me." --from you@example.com
```
```
Draft to alex@example.com saved in Drafts. Nothing was sent.
```
`--show` opts into a visible compose window instead, and it is a **one-way door**:
a compose window Mail has opened cannot be closed again from AppleScript, so
dismissing it is yours to do by hand. That is why filing quietly is the default.
`--from` is worth setting. Without it Mail picks its own default account, which
on a machine with several is a choice the caller cannot see and the recipient
can.
### Long bodies, and formatted ones
On `mail send`, `mail draft`, `mail reply`, `mail reply-draft`, `mail forward` and
`mail forward-draft`.
`--body "$(cat draft.md)"` was the only way to write a real email through this,
and it is two problems: your shell re-expands what it interpolates, so a body
containing a backtick or a `$(` runs as a command, and `ARG_MAX` caps how long
the message can be. Both are now avoidable:
```bash
pyapple mail draft --to alex@example.com --subject "Thursday" --body-file reply.md
pyapple mail reply-draft --id 102917 --body - <<'EOF'
Works for me. I have put the figures in the attached.
EOF
```
`--body-file -` also reads standard input. `--body` and `--body-file` are
mutually exclusive and passing both is exit `2`: two sources for one value is a
question, and answering it quietly is how the wrong text ends up in somebody's
mail.
`--html` and `--html-file` compose a **formatted** body — bold, italics, sizes,
links. There is no scripting route to rich text on macOS (`html content` is
documented by Apple as doing nothing), so it goes on the pasteboard with a
`public.html` flavour and is pasted into the compose window, which is why it
needs the [Accessibility grant](#permissions-setup). `--body` is its plain-text
alternative and is derived from the markup if you leave it out; it is never
optional underneath, because it is what a reader with images off sees.
```bash
pyapple mail draft --to alex@example.com --subject "Thursday" \
--html '<p>Works for me — <b>10:30</b> in <a href="https://maps.apple.com">the usual place</a>.</p>'
```
On `send` and `draft` the formatting **degrades**: without Accessibility, or if
the caret cannot be proved to be in the message body, the message is composed as
plain text and the result says the formatting was not applied. There is always a
correct plain body to fall back to there, because `content` works on a new
outgoing message. A reply has no such fallback and is refused instead.
Your clipboard is snapshotted before any of this — every item, every flavour, not
a transcription — and put back afterwards, whatever happens in between. The
result reports whether it went back rather than assuming so.
## Permission Policy
Both front ends read one policy object, so a restriction set for the MCP server
also binds the CLI and vice versa. One string expresses it, and it is identical
in an MCP config's `env` block and in a shell:
```json
{
"mcpServers": {
"pyapple": {
"command": "pyapple-mcp",
"env": {
"PYAPPLE_PERMS": "mail=read+draft,calendar=all,messages=read,*=read"
}
}
}
}
```
```bash
export PYAPPLE_PERMS="mail=read+draft,calendar=all,messages=read,*=read"
```
The grammar is `tool=class[+class…]`, comma separated. `all` is every class,
`none` removes the tool entirely, and `*` sets what happens to tools nobody
named.
> **A policy with no `*` narrows only the tools it names. Everything else keeps
> every operation.**
>
> ```bash
> PYAPPLE_PERMS="mail=read" # mail is read-only. The other nine are untouched
> PYAPPLE_PERMS="mail=read,*=read" # all ten are read-only
> PYAPPLE_PERMS="mail=read,*=none" # mail is read-only and the other nine are gone
> ```
>
> This is deliberate, and it is the single most misread thing in this file —
> two people in a row reported the first line as a bug. Writing `mail=read` says
> something about mail and nothing about your calendar, and a policy parser that
> silently disarmed the calendar would be removing a capability you never asked
> it to remove. **If you want a narrow default, say so with `*`.**
> `pyapple perms` prints which tools a policy left alone, so you never have to
> infer it from the table.
### The four classes
| Class | What it covers |
| --- | --- |
| `read` | changes nothing |
| `write` | changes this Mac, privately |
| `draft` | composes without transmitting |
| `send` | leaves the machine, reaches a person, irreversible |
The line that matters here is **not** read versus write. It is *"changes my Mac"*
against *"leaves my Mac and reaches another person"*. Deleting a note is private
and recoverable from the Trash; sending an email is neither, and no amount of
subsequent care retracts it. Those two are both writes and they belong in
different classes, which is why there are four rather than two.
**`messages` has no `draft` class**, and this surprises people. iMessage exposes
no draft object to AppleScript — there is no way to compose a message and leave
it unsent — so `messages=draft` grants nothing at all, which is the correct
amount. For that one tool the choice really is read or send.
**One `read` operation can still write, and it is named here rather than left to
be found.** `mail unread` accepts `--mark-read`, which clears the unread flag on
what it returns. The operation is classified `read` because that is its purpose
and the flag defaults to off — but it means a `mail=read` grant can change that
one piece of state. Enforcing it would need a per-argument gate, which the policy
does not have.
**`shortcuts run` is `send`, and it transmits nothing by itself.** It is the one
place a class is assigned from what an operation *could* do rather than from what
it does, because macOS gives no way to read a shortcut's actions —
[see above](#a-shortcuts-actions-cannot-be-read-which-is-why-run-is-a-send). At
any lower class, `PYAPPLE_READ_ONLY=1` would permit arbitrary user code that can
mail a stranger, and the shorthand would stop meaning what it says.
Of the 88 operations, 43 are `read`, 35 are `write`, 3 are `draft`
(`mail draft`, `replyDraft`, `forwardDraft`) and 7 are `send`.
### Confirming a send before it goes
The policy answers *may this caller send at all*. It answers it once, from an
environment variable, for the whole life of the process — which is the right
shape for a grant and the wrong shape for a decision about one particular message
to one particular person. A model granted `mail=send` is granted every future
send, including the one nobody has read yet.
`PYAPPLE_CONFIRM_SENDS=1` is the other half. **Confirmation is a phase of the
send, not a second operation:** call a send with no token and nothing is sent —
the answer is a rendering of what *would* go, plus a single-use ticket to send
exactly that.
```bash
$ export PYAPPLE_CONFIRM_SENDS=1
$ pyapple messages send --to "+15550000000" --message "Hello there"; echo $?
Would send to +15550000000:
Hello there
**Nothing was sent.** This install requires sends to be confirmed. Show the above to the user; to send exactly it, repeat this call with --confirm-token=zMWFqAAIpRWJRvGE (good once, for 300s). Changing any part of the message invalidates the token.
0
$ pyapple messages send --to "+15550000000" --message "Hello there" \
--confirm-token zMWFqAAIpRWJRvGE
```
**Exit `0`, and `isError: false` over MCP.** Nothing failed and nothing is
pending: the caller asked what would happen, was told, and was handed the means to
go ahead. A caller that treats it as a failure has misread it. Under `--json` the
same fact is `sent: false` and `confirmation_required: true`, with
`confirm_token`, `expires_in_seconds` and `digest` beside it, so a script never
has to parse English to find the token.
**The binding is the point, not the pause.** A confirmation that only asks "are
you sure?" is theatre — the caller previews a polite note and then sends something
else. So the ticket carries a digest of the *resolved* payload: recipients after
lookup and handle normalisation, the subject, the body, the file actually on disk.
The second call recomputes that digest from the arguments it was given, and a
message that moved between the two is refused with the fields named, never their
values, because a refusal ends up in a log.
```bash
$ pyapple messages send --to "+15550000000" --message "Different text" \
--confirm-token zMWFqAAIpRWJRvGE; echo $?
error: This is not the message that was confirmed: to, body changed. Nothing was sent. Preview again and confirm the new message.
1
```
| Variable | Default | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `PYAPPLE_CONFIRM_SENDS` | off | `1`, `true`, `yes` or `on` requires a ticket for every gated send |
| `PYAPPLE_CONFIRM_TTL` | `300` | how many seconds a ticket is good for. A value that is not a number falls back to the default and says so on stderr — the only thing in this package that fails soft, and it is safe only because every direction the fallback could be wrong in is the tighter one |
| `PYAPPLE_STATE_DIR` | `~/.pyapple` | where tickets live, under `<dir>/consent`, created and enforced `0700` |
Six things are worth knowing before you rely on it:
- **Gated today:** `mail send`, `mail reply`, `mail forward` (only when it
delivers), `messages send`, `messages sendAttachment`. The `draft` operations
are not gated, because a confirmation for something that reaches nobody is a
ceremony with nothing behind it.
- **A ticket file never contains the message.** Only a digest. The body of a
message somebody is composing is the most private thing this package touches,
and writing it under `~/.pyapple` would put it somewhere no Apple app put it,
outside every store macOS gates. The second call supplies the payload again, so
nothing has to be remembered.
- **It can only tighten.** There is no flag that turns the requirement off, for
the same reason `--perms` can only narrow: the first argument a prompt-injected
model would learn to pass is the one that disables the gate.
- **A ticket is good once, and it is spent before the send is attempted.** A
failed send does not give it back — that is `utils/applescript.py`'s argument
again, since a send that reported failure may already have left, and handing the
ticket back to be retried is how one approval becomes two messages. The cost is
a re-preview after a genuine failure, which is the direction to be wrong in.
- **An attachment is bound by resolved path, size and mtime, not by content
hash.** Hashing a 40MB video on every preview, to close a window in which
somebody can already write to your disk, is a bad trade. Because it is the
*resolved* path, a symlink repointed between the two calls is caught.
- **It does not stop a caller that previews and sends in the same breath**
without showing anybody. Nothing in a protocol can. What it buys is that a
client which does surface previews is now able to, and that the surfaced thing
and the sent thing are provably the same.
### Narrowing for one run
`--perms` on the command line **intersects** with the environment. It can only
take away, never grant:
```bash
# PYAPPLE_PERMS="*=read" is set; this does not give mail back
pyapple --perms "mail=all" perms
```
So someone who reached a terminal cannot undo the restriction an MCP
configuration put in place. `PYAPPLE_READ_ONLY=1` still works as the documented
shorthand for `*=read`, and it is applied first, so `PYAPPLE_PERMS` can only
narrow it further.
A malformed policy fails closed rather than failing open, and it is **exit 2** —
bad input, the same status as a bad command line, because the operation never
started. The message names the token it could not read *and which of the two
inputs it came from*:
```bash
$ pyapple --perms "mail=nonsense" mail accounts; echo $?
usage: --perms: 'mail=nonsense' names an unknown class 'nonsense'; the classes are: read, write, draft, send, plus 'all' and 'none'
2
$ PYAPPLE_PERMS="mail@read" pyapple perms; echo $?
usage: PYAPPLE_PERMS: 'mail@read' is not 'tool=class[+class…]'; the tools are: contacts, notes, messages, mail, reminders, calendar, maps, shortcuts, presence, doctor, or '*' for the rest
2
```
That holds on every entry point — `pyapple`, `python -m pyapple_mcp.cli`,
`--version`, and `pyapple perms` itself, which is the command you would type to
find out what is wrong. Nothing is printed on stdout: a half-written table is a
promise the command cannot keep.
The MCP server refuses to start for the same reason, with the same status, and
says so on stderr where a client's log will pick it up:
```
pyapple-mcp: not starting — PYAPPLE_PERMS cannot be read.
'mail@read' is not 'tool=class[+class…]'; the tools are: …
Fix PYAPPLE_PERMS in this server's "env" block, for example
"mail=read+draft,calendar=all,*=read", or remove it to allow everything.
```
There is no "could not understand, carrying on" path. A `--since` that fails open
returns too much data; a policy that fails open sends the email.
### Seeing what is in effect
The default is everything on — all **88** operations across the ten tools.
`*=read` leaves **43**. `pyapple perms` prints the effective policy and where
each part came from, which is the answer to the question that always follows a
refusal:
```bash
$ PYAPPLE_PERMS="mail=read+draft,calendar=all,messages=read,*=read" pyapple perms
Effective policy
contacts read search, lookup
notes read search, list, view, folders
messages read conversations, read, search, attachments, unread
mail read+draft unread, search, searchBodies, readMessage, thread, attachments, coverage, draft, replyDraft, forwardDraft, mailboxes, accounts
reminders read list, search, lists, open
calendar all search, list, calendars, free, coverage, create, reschedule, alarms, move, delete, open
maps read search, directions, listGuides
shortcuts read list, folders, describe, open
presence read snapshot, focus, app, idle, screen
doctor read report
From:
defaults all 10 tools, every operation
PYAPPLE_PERMS mail=read+draft,calendar=all,messages=read,*=read
```
That policy leaves **51** of the 88 — everything the assistant needs to read your
world, draft mail rather than send it, and run your calendar outright.
A policy with no `*` gets one more paragraph, naming the tools it decided
nothing about:
```bash
$ PYAPPLE_PERMS="mail=read" pyapple perms
Effective policy
contacts all search, lookup, add, addTo, rename, delete
…
From:
defaults all 10 tools, every operation
PYAPPLE_PERMS mail=read
No '*' entry, so the 9 tools the policy does not name keep
every operation: contacts, notes, messages, reminders, calendar, maps, shortcuts, presence, doctor.
Add '*=read' to narrow them, or '*=none' to remove them entirely.
```
Operations appear there under their canonical names, which is what a policy
string and the MCP schema both use. Fifteen are spelled with a hyphen on the
command line — `mail search-bodies`, `mail mark-read`, `mail reply-draft`,
`mail forward-draft`, `messages send-attachment`, `contacts add-to`,
`notes set-body`, `notes folder-create`, `notes folder-rename`,
`notes folder-delete`, `reminders list-create`, `reminders list-delete`,
`maps list-guides`, `maps create-guide` and `maps add-to-guide`. Both spellings
work as CLI subcommands for all of them. `readMessage` is the one that is not
merely rehyphenated: on the command line it is `pyapple mail read`.
On the server side a forbidden operation is removed from the tool's `operation`
enum, so a model cannot express it in the first place; on the CLI side it is
refused with exit `4`. Same policy, two enforcement points.
### What `tools/list` tells an MCP client
The tool annotations are **computed from the policy in force**, not hardcoded.
MCP annotates a *tool* while this package classifies an *operation*, and most of
these tools multiplex reads and writes behind one `operation` argument — so there
is no honest fixed answer to "is `mail` read-only?". Under `PYAPPLE_READ_ONLY=1`
it genuinely is, its enum says so, and `readOnlyHint` says so too; under a full
grant it does not. A hardcoded annotation would be wrong in one of those two
worlds, and the one it would be wrong in is the world where a client trusted it
and skipped a confirmation.
`openWorldHint` is true wherever a call can reach something that is not this Mac:
any tool retaining a `send`, plus `maps` in every policy, because its *reads*
geocode over the network. None of this is load-bearing for safety — a forbidden
operation is already unrepresentable — and these are hints a client may ignore.
They exist so that a client which does read them reaches the same decision this
package would.
## Development
### Local Setup
1. **Clone the repository**:
```bash
git clone https://github.com/54yyyu/pyapple-mcp.git
cd pyapple-mcp
```
2. **Install dependencies**:
```bash
pip install -e ".[dev]"
```
3. **Run the development server**:
```bash
python -m pyapple_mcp.server
```
4. **Or run the CLI from the source tree**, without installing the console
script:
```bash
python -m pyapple_mcp.cli --help
python -m pyapple_mcp.cli perms
```
### Running the tests
```bash
pytest
```
The suite builds its own Mail store in a temporary directory and reads nothing
of yours, so it needs no mailbox, no permissions and no network.
Two checks are worth knowing about if you add an operation. `tests/test_policy.py`
reads the operation list out of `server.py` and fails if it disagrees with
`policy.py`, so an operation with no permission class is caught when it is
written rather than when it is used. `tests/test_cli.py` then walks every leaf
the CLI parser accepts and asserts each lands on the correct side of the
read-only gate — which also catches a subcommand spelled differently from the
server's operation name, since the gate looks that name up in the policy and a
`send-message` where the server says `send` would be a write waved through.
### Testing with the MCP Inspector
```bash
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector pyapple-mcp
```
## Requirements
- **macOS 10.15+** (Catalina or later)
- **Python 3.10+**
- **Appropriate permissions** — see below. Fewer than you might expect: most of
this package now goes through system frameworks rather than through the apps
## Permissions Setup
These are macOS's own permissions — what the operating system will let the
process touch. They are a different thing from the
[Permission Policy](#permission-policy) above, which is what *you* choose to
allow out of what macOS has already granted. You need both: macOS decides
whether the mailbox can be opened at all, and `PYAPPLE_PERMS` decides what may
be done with it.
There are two kinds, and they are granted in different places:
**Privacy grants** — Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, and Full Disk Access for the
Mail and Messages databases. These cover almost everything, including every
`contacts`, `reminders` and `calendar` write, because those go through the
Contacts framework and EventKit rather than through the apps. Full Disk Access
also covers `presence focus`, which is the only presence operation that costs
anything; the other four read from a process holding no grant at all.
**`pyapple doctor report` is how you find out which of these you have.** It names
the missing grant per tool and where to click, it never prompts, and where it
cannot tell it says *undetermined* with the reason rather than guessing.
**An Accessibility grant** — new in 1.6.0, and load-bearing rather than
optional. `mail reply`, `mail reply-draft` and anything passing `--html` put the
body on the pasteboard and paste it into the compose window, because macOS
offers **no scripting route to the body of a reply and none to rich text at
all**: Mail's own dictionary describes `html content` as *"Does nothing at all
(deprecated)"*, and `content` is not a property of `outgoing message` — it works
on a new message and destroys the quoted original on a reply. Pasting needs
System Events to be allowed to send keystrokes.
Grant it in **System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility**, to whatever
runs `pyapple` — your terminal, or your MCP client — and to *System Events* if it
is listed. Without it, a reply is **refused** rather than composed empty, and
`--html` on `send`/`draft` falls back to plain text and says so. Neither one
fails quietly, which is the whole reason this section exists.
**Automation grants** — *"control Mail"*, *"control Messages"*, *"control
Notes"*, *"control Calendar"*. These are the ones that pop up a dialog naming
another application. You need them only for what the table in
[Limits worth knowing](#almost-nothing-launches-an-app-any-more--but-mail-messages-and-notes-still-do)
lists: all of `notes`, mail's writes and its `mailboxes`, messages' `send`,
`sendAttachment` and `open`, `calendar open` and `create --invitees`, and
`reminders open`. Nothing in `contacts`, `maps`, `shortcuts`, `presence` or
`doctor` will ever ask.
The prompts are per-application, so granting them to Claude Desktop does not
grant them to your terminal. Running `pyapple` for the first time will prompt
again, on behalf of whichever terminal you ran it from.
## Troubleshooting
### Common Issues
**Permission Denied Errors**:
- Go to **System Settings > Privacy & Security**
- Grant access to the required applications
- Restart Claude Desktop
**Module Import Errors**:
- Ensure you're running on macOS
- Install PyObjC frameworks: `pip install pyobjc`
**AppleScript Execution Errors**:
- Check that the target applications are installed
- Verify automation permissions in System Settings
**Setup Issues**:
- Run `pyapple-mcp-setup --help` for setup options
- Check that pyapple-mcp is in your PATH: `which pyapple-mcp`
- Use `pyapple-mcp-setup --config-path /path/to/config` for custom config locations
### On the command line
**`refused: … is a 'write' operation` (exit `4`)**:
- Something narrowed the policy. `pyapple perms` prints what is in effect and
which setting produced it — an environment variable, a `--perms` on this
command line, or `--read-only`
- Remember that `--perms` can only take away. If the environment already set
`PYAPPLE_PERMS`, no flag will widen it
**`cannot read …` (exit `3`)**:
- This is macOS refusing, not the policy refusing. **Run `pyapple doctor report`**
— it names which grant is missing for that tool and where to click, and it
distinguishes a grant that is off from one it could not determine
- Check **System Settings > Privacy & Security** for the terminal you ran it
from, which is granted separately from Claude Desktop
**`Refused; edit it in Notes instead` on a note edit**:
- Not a bug. The note holds an image, attachment, link, heading or list, and
writing its body back would destroy that. See
[Notes editing refuses more than it accepts](#notes-editing-refuses-more-than-it-accepts)
**`Contacts will not save any change to …` (Cocoa error 134092)**:
- Also not a bug, and retrying will not help. A minority of cards refuse every
framework write, permanently. Edit that one card in the Contacts app
**A message you sent turning up in Drafts**:
- Expected, and it was still sent. Mail autosaves outgoing messages; see
[Every mail `send` leaves a copy in the sender's Drafts](#every-mail-send-leaves-a-copy-in-the-senders-drafts)
**`scan INCOMPLETE` from `search-bodies`**:
- The full line reads `N matches, scan INCOMPLETE: read the newest X of Y
candidates, stopped at --scan-limit X`, and a zero under it says nothing about
whether the term is in your mail — only that it was not found *yet*. The
complete form is `N matches, scanned all Y candidates`, and a zero under *that*
is an answer. In `--json` the flag is `scan_truncated`, and `total` is `null`
under a cut scan because the match count covers only what was reached. Both exit `0`: the
status answers "did the read run", and the completeness of the scan is carried
in the payload rather than in `$?`
- Narrow it with `--since` or `--account`, or raise `--scan-limit`. No setting
makes a body appear that was never downloaded — run `pyapple mail coverage` to
see which accounts have any
**An empty result you did not expect**:
- Check `$?` before believing it. A failed read exits non-zero and writes
nothing to stdout; a genuinely empty mailbox exits `0` and, under `--json`,
prints `{"results": [], "total": 0, "truncated": false, …}`. Never treat a
missing result as an empty one
- And check `truncated` before believing a *short* result. A read that was cut
says so there; `total` says how much it was cut from
**`usage: since must be an ISO 8601 timestamp …` (exit `2`)**:
- `--since` takes `2026-08-05` or `2026-08-05T09:00:00`, not prose. An
unparseable value is an error rather than a silently unfiltered result
### Logging
Both front ends send every log line to **stderr**, which is what keeps the CLI's
stdout carrying the result and only the result. The server logs at `INFO`; the
CLI logs at `WARNING`, so in normal use it is silent until something goes wrong.
```bash
pyapple mail unread 2>/dev/null # result only
pyapple mail unread >/dev/null # diagnostics only
```
There is no environment variable for verbose output. To see the traceback behind
an unexpected failure, lower the level in-process — `force=True` matters, since
importing the package configures logging first:
```bash
python -c "
import logging, sys
from pyapple_mcp.cli import main
logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG, stream=sys.stderr, force=True)
sys.exit(main(['mail', 'unread']))
"
```
`main()` returns the exit status rather than raising, which is also how the tests
drive a command without leaving the process.
## Architecture
```
pyapple-mcp/
├── pyapple_mcp/
│ ├── __init__.py
│ ├── server.py # MCP server front end
│ ├── cli.py # command line front end
│ ├── handlers.py # the shared handler objects and the policy
│ ├── policy.py # permission classes, parsing and intersection
│ ├── consent.py # the two-phase send gate: tickets bound to a payload digest
│ ├── outcomes.py # one classifier for "did this fail", shared by both front ends
│ ├── setup_helper.py # setup and configuration helper
│ └── utils/
│ ├── __init__.py
│ ├── applescript.py # AppleScript execution
│ ├── calendar.py # Calendar, through EventKit
│ ├── contacts.py # Contacts, through CNContactStore
│ ├── doctor.py # which macOS grants this process holds, probed without prompting
│ ├── mail.py # Mail: reads from the Envelope Index, writes over Apple Events
│ ├── maps.py # Maps, through MapKit
│ ├── messages.py # Messages: reads from chat.db, sends over Apple Events
│ ├── notes.py # Notes, over Apple Events — the only route there is
│ ├── pasteboard.py # snapshot and restore, for the paste routes in mail
│ ├── phrasing.py # parameter naming and the stderr logger
│ ├── presence.py # Focus, frontmost app, idle, screen — read only, no setter
│ ├── reminders.py # Reminders, through EventKit
│ ├── shortcuts.py # Shortcuts, through /usr/bin/shortcuts — a subprocess
│ ├── timeparse.py # ISO 8601 parsing for --since
│ └── truncation.py # the {results, total, truncated, more_hint} envelope
├── tests/
├── requirements.txt
├── README.md
├── LICENSE
└── pyproject.toml
```
The shape worth knowing: **`cli.py` contains no Apple logic**. Every query,
AppleScript and framework call lives in `utils/`, and both front ends call the
same handler objects out of `handlers.py` — not two copies that can drift out of
agreement. `policy.py` is imported by both and by neither's dependencies, which
is what lets one permission string mean the same thing in an MCP config and in a
shell.
`utils/applescript.py` is smaller than it looks and carries one rule worth
repeating: a write that hits its timeout raises rather than returning
`success: False`, because a script killed mid-run may already have done what it
was asked. A caller that retries on a false negative repeats a mutation that
already happened.
## Contributing
1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch: `git checkout -b feature-name`
3. Make your changes
4. Run tests: `pytest`
5. Submit a pull request
## License
MIT License - see [LICENSE](LICENSE) file for details.
## Acknowledgments
- Inspired by the original [apple-mcp](https://github.com/dhravya/apple-mcp) TypeScript implementation
- Built with [FastMCP](https://gofastmcp.com)
- Uses PyObjC for macOS system integration