What your assistant can do — and what it never can.

Confirms the connection is up and authenticated. Ask your assistant to "use the Postern Mail ping tool" after installing.

Lists your mailboxes by the names you gave them, with their address and the switches you turned on. This is how the assistant knows what "my work account" means and what it is allowed to do there.

Never returns a message. An account with no mailboxes gets an empty list, not an error.

The folder tree of a mailbox: the top level and its subfolders by default, deeper or inside one folder on request — each folder with its path, its standard role (inbox, sent, drafts, deleted, junk, archive), how many messages it holds, how many are unread and how many subfolders it has. Roles come from the provider, so a Dutch "Verzonden items" is still recognised as Sent.

Never returns a message. Hidden system folders are left out.

Lists the inbox as summaries: sender, subject, priority, received time, read state, attachment names and a short preview. Filters: everything, unread only, or a given day — today, yesterday or a date, in your timezone.

Returns at most 20 messages per call. When more remain, the assistant is told to ask you before reading on, because reading a whole inbox costs a lot of your assistant's budget.

Never returns a full body or attachment content.

Finds messages anywhere in the mailbox — every folder at once, Sent Items and Archive included — by words in the sender, subject or body, and says which folder each match is in. Can be narrowed to one folder. Your provider's own search operators (from:, subject:) pass straight through.

Same 20-per-call discipline as the inbox query. Results come in the provider's relevance order.

Never returns a full body. Requires its own switch: being allowed to read the inbox does not mean being allowed to search everything.

One complete message: every To and Cc recipient, the full body as readable text (or the original HTML on request), and the complete list of attachments with their names, sizes and types.

Never returns attachment content — that is a separate, deliberate call.

Hands the actual attachments of one message to the assistant inside the answer, so it can read a PDF, look at an image or open a spreadsheet directly. Limits: 10 MB per attachment, 20 MB per call; larger files are refused by name, never truncated.

Never fetches files that live outside the mailbox (cloud links). Nothing is kept afterwards.

Moves one message into a folder found through list_folders or search_mail — exactly as if you dragged it there. Archiving is a move into the Archive folder. The message keeps its content, read state and attachments.

Never moves a message into Deleted Items. That is deleting, which has its own switch; the assistant is pointed to delete_mail instead. Folders are addressed by identifier, never by name, so two folders called "2025" cannot be confused.

Moves one message to Deleted Items, where you can restore it from your own mail client exactly as if you had deleted it yourself.

Never permanently erases anything and never empties Deleted Items. There is no parameter, phrasing or code path that does — which is why the tool needs no confirmation prompt.

Writes a reply to one message and saves it in Drafts for you to review, edit and send yourself. The reply carries the subject and the quoted original, and goes to the original sender or, on request, to everyone on the thread.

Never sends. Never adds a recipient. No draft identifier is returned, so nothing can send it later.

Sends a reply to one message immediately, from the mailbox's own address, and files a copy in Sent Items.

Never reaches anyone who was not already on the conversation: the reply is addressed by the provider, and there is no field for adding an address.

Writes a new message to recipients of the assistant's choosing — To, Cc, Bcc, up to 20 in total — with a subject and an HTML body, and saves it in Drafts.

Never sends. No draft identifier is returned.

Sends a new message immediately, from the mailbox's own address, to the recipients given, and files a copy in Sent Items. This is the one function that can reach a new address, which is why it has the switch most people leave off on shared mailboxes.

Never attaches files (planned). Never sends from an address other than the mailbox's own.