How do I install the Email skill?

Run npx skillmds@latest add pasky/email in your terminal (requires Node.js), paste this page's agent-chat prompt into Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-connected agent, or download the SKILL.md file and copy it into your agent's skills directory.

Is Email safe to use?

This skill has not completed SkillMD's automated safety review yet. Capability flags: docs only. SkillMD never runs a skill's scripts for you; review the SKILL.md before installing.

Which AI agents work with Email?

This skill is tagged as working with Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex. SKILL.md is an open format, so most agents that read a skills directory can load it too.

Is Email free to use?

Yes. Installing skills from SkillMD is free, and the skill stays under its author's original license.

pasky (@pasky) published this skill. Their other Agent Skills are listed on their SkillMD profile.

Email by pasky — Agent Skill

Name: Email
Rating: 4.5 (4 reviews)
Author: pasky

File contents

Email (notmuch)

pasky's mail lives in ~/Mail, indexed by notmuch.

FIRST: refresh the index

The index is NOT updated automatically on delivery. If you are looking for anything from the last day or so, run this first, always:

notmuch new

(2026-09-03: a booking confirmation that had arrived 20 minutes earlier was invisible to every search until notmuch new was run.)

Search

notmuch search 'from:kacirek subject:XC40 date:2026-08-21'   # threads
notmuch search --output=messages 'from:kacirek date:2026-08-21'  # message ids

Useful terms: from: to: subject: date:YYYY-MM-DD (or ranges date:aug21.., date:today, date:yesterday..), attachment:name, tag:unread, plain words for full-text.

If a search comes up empty, the fix is notmuch new, not grepping ~/Maildir — bodies there are base64/quoted-printable, so grep won't find the text anyway.

Read a message / thread

notmuch show --format=raw id:MESSAGE_ID          # full RFC822 of one message
notmuch show --format=json thread:THREADID       # structured whole thread

For quick body text of a thread, notmuch show thread:... (plain format) is fine (commercial HTML mail like booking.com carries a text/plain alternative, which is what gets printed).

Extract attachments

notmuch show --format=raw id:MESSAGE_ID > /tmp/msg.eml
uv run python - <<'EOF'
import email, email.policy
m = email.message_from_file(open('/tmp/msg.eml'), policy=email.policy.default)
for part in m.walk():
    if fn := part.get_filename():
        out = '/tmp/att-' + fn.replace('/','_').replace(' ','_')
        open(out,'wb').write(part.get_payload(decode=True))
        print('saved', out)
EOF

Then read PDFs with uv run --with pypdf, docx with uv run --with python-docx. Beware non-ASCII filenames (č/š/ž): glob rather than typing them literally.

---name: emaildescription: Search and read pasky's local email (notmuch over ~/Mail maildir), including extracting attachments (PDFs, docx, images). Use when asked to check/find something in email.---# Email (notmuch)pasky's mail lives in `~/Mail`, indexed by **notmuch**.## FIRST: refresh the indexThe index is NOT updated automatically on delivery. If you are looking foranything from the last day or so, run this first, always:```bashnotmuch new```(2026-09-03: a booking confirmation that had arrived 20 minutes earlier wasinvisible to every search until `notmuch new` was run.)## Search```bashnotmuch search 'from:kacirek subject:XC40 date:2026-08-21' # threadsnotmuch search --output=messages 'from:kacirek date:2026-08-21' # message ids```Useful terms: `from:` `to:` `subject:` `date:YYYY-MM-DD` (or ranges `date:aug21..`,`date:today`, `date:yesterday..`), `attachment:name`, `tag:unread`, plain wordsfor full-text.If a search comes up empty, the fix is `notmuch new`, not grepping`~/Maildir` — bodies there are base64/quoted-printable, so grep won't findthe text anyway.## Read a message / thread```bashnotmuch show --format=raw id:MESSAGE_ID # full RFC822 of one messagenotmuch show --format=json thread:THREADID # structured whole thread```For quick body text of a thread, `notmuch show thread:...` (plain format) is fine(commercial HTML mail like booking.com carries a text/plain alternative, whichis what gets printed).## Extract attachments```bashnotmuch show --format=raw id:MESSAGE_ID > /tmp/msg.emluv run python - <<'EOF'import email, email.policym = email.message_from_file(open('/tmp/msg.eml'), policy=email.policy.default)for part in m.walk(): if fn := part.get_filename(): out = '/tmp/att-' + fn.replace('/','_').replace(' ','_') open(out,'wb').write(part.get_payload(decode=True)) print('saved', out)EOF```Then read PDFs with `uv run --with pypdf`, docx with `uv run --with python-docx`.Beware non-ASCII filenames (č/š/ž): glob rather than typing them literally.

Frequently asked questions

Email