Connect an EarthLink inbox
to Claude, Cursor, any MCP client
EarthLink still runs its own mail servers, older than most of the internet and still answering. mcpemails connects one over IMAP so your AI agent can read, search, send, reply and file that mail.
Claude cannot reach an EarthLink mailbox on its own. mcpemails is a hosted MCP server that connects it over IMAP at imap.earthlink.net on port 993, signing in with your full email address and your ordinary email password. EarthLink issues no app-specific passwords and has no client access switch to turn on, so the credential you already use is the credential that works, and the same settings cover the mindspring.com, peoplepc.com and ix.netcom.com addresses EarthLink still hosts. Outgoing mail uses a different hostname, smtpauth.earthlink.net on port 587. One inbox is free, forever.
How EarthLink connects: IMAP in, a separate authenticated SMTP out
EarthLink publishes a single IMAP host for every domain it carries. imap.earthlink.net answers on port 993 over TLS, and the username is the whole address with its own domain intact, so a Mindspring or PeoplePC address goes in unchanged. Outgoing mail is the part people get wrong: it does not share the incoming name. Submission runs at smtpauth.earthlink.net on port 587 with STARTTLS, a hostname that exists because EarthLink historically ran a separate unauthenticated relay for customers on its own network and kept the authenticated one under its own name. EarthLink's documentation says to use your full email address and password on both, and there is no app password to create. POP is the one place the domains diverge: EarthLink documents per-domain POP hosts such as pop.mindspring.com, which is why some old setup guides look domain specific when the IMAP side is not.
The exact EarthLink IMAP and SMTP settings
Copy these into the connect form. mcpemails prefills them where it can, and retries the other standard transport if the first does not answer.
| Protocol | Server | Port | Security |
|---|---|---|---|
| IMAP (incoming) | imap.earthlink.net | 993 | TLS (implicit) |
| SMTP (outgoing) | smtpauth.earthlink.net | 587 | STARTTLS |
Verified 2026-08-31: imap.earthlink.net answered a TLS connection and identified itself as an IMAP server under that name. It advertises CRAM-MD5, EL-TAC, EL-VOICE authentication.
Sign in with: Your full address, whichever legacy domain it uses: name@earthlink.net, name@mindspring.com, name@peoplepc.com or name@ix.netcom.com.
A EarthLink inbox your agent can actually use
Nine action-based MCP tools: send, reply, forward, schedule, and organize. Your agent finishes the job inside EarthLink.
- 01Read
Read & search mail
List, read and search across folders to find that invoice, summarize a thread, or pull the latest from a sender.
- 02Send
Send, reply & forward
Compose and send real messages, reply in-thread, and forward, directly from your mailbox, not as a draft you finish by hand.
- 03Schedule
Schedule for later
Queue a message to go out at the right time, so your agent can draft now and send on schedule.
- 04Organize
Move, copy, flag, archive, delete
Keep the inbox tidy: file mail into folders, flag what matters, archive the rest, or delete on request.
Connect EarthLink in four steps
From sign-up to first AI email in a couple of minutes.
Create a free mcpemails account
Sign up at mcpemails.com. The free plan connects one inbox and does not ask for a card.
Check the password on the mailbox itself, not the billing login
Sign in to EarthLink webmail with the address you want to connect and confirm the password works there. EarthLink accounts often carry several mailboxes under one subscription, each with its own password, and the one on the account you pay with is not necessarily the one on the address you are connecting.
Enter the full address and that password
In mcpemails choose IMAP / SMTP and enter the address exactly as it is written, name@mindspring.com included. The EarthLink hosts and ports below are prefilled and were verified from a live TLS connection, including the separate outgoing host on port 587.
Paste the MCP URL into your AI
Drop https://mcpemails.com/api/mcp into Claude, Cursor or ChatGPT, authorise, and your agent has the inbox.
Comparing providers first? See the email provider compatibility matrix
What actually goes wrong with EarthLink
EarthLink advertises no usable SASL mechanism, and strict clients give up rather than log in
The capability list EarthLink returns before login offers AUTH=CRAM-MD5, AUTH=EL-TAC and AUTH=EL-VOICE. The last two are EarthLink's own mechanisms and no ordinary mail client implements them. There is no AUTH=PLAIN and no AUTH=LOGIN in that list at all. A client written to pick a SASL mechanism from what the server advertises therefore finds nothing it can use and reports an authentication failure without ever sending a password. What actually works is the plain IMAP LOGIN command, which the server accepts because it does not advertise LOGINDISABLED. mcpemails falls back to it. This is the single most useful fact on this page and no other EarthLink settings guide mentions it.
The outgoing server is not imap or smtp dot earthlink dot net
It is smtpauth.earthlink.net, on port 587 with STARTTLS rather than implicit TLS on 465. Guides that pattern-match from the incoming host, or that assume 465 because most providers use it, produce a configuration that connects for reading and silently fails on the first send. If mail arrives but nothing leaves, this is why.
No SASL-IR either, so authentication is a two-step exchange
EarthLink does not advertise SASL-IR, so it rejects the one-step form that sends credentials with the AUTHENTICATE command. Combined with the mechanism list above, an authentication attempt against EarthLink can fail in two different ways that both look like a bad password. mcpemails retries the two-step exchange rather than treating the first refusal as final.
No IDLE, no MOVE, no SPECIAL-USE on this server
The EarthLink IMAP service is old and it shows in its capability list. Without IDLE there is no push, so new mail is found by polling. Without MOVE, filing a message runs as COPY, then STORE the deleted flag, then EXPUNGE. Without SPECIAL-USE the server never says which folder is Sent or Trash, so those are matched by name. UIDPLUS is present, which at least means a copied message reports its new id.
Known limits with EarthLink
- EarthLink's SMTP host announces a maximum message size of 50 MB, so a send with larger attachments is refused before it leaves.
- No IDLE support, so new mail is discovered by polling rather than pushed.
- Moves are not atomic and folder roles are matched by name, because MOVE and SPECIAL-USE are not implemented on this server.
EarthLink and AI: common questions
Does Claude work with EarthLink email?
Not directly. Claude has no built-in EarthLink connector. Connecting an MCP server such as mcpemails to the mailbox over IMAP gives Claude read, search, send, reply, schedule and organise access to your earthlink.net or mindspring.com mail, and the same connection works in Cursor, ChatGPT and other MCP clients.
What are the EarthLink IMAP and SMTP settings?
IMAP is imap.earthlink.net on port 993 with implicit TLS. Outgoing mail is smtpauth.earthlink.net on port 587 with STARTTLS and authentication required. Both were verified from a live TLS connection. EarthLink's own documentation says to use your full email address and email password on both.
Do mindspring.com and peoplepc.com addresses use the same settings?
For IMAP, yes. EarthLink serves the legacy domains it acquired from the same imap.earthlink.net host, and the username is simply the full address with its own domain. POP is the exception: EarthLink documents per-domain POP hostnames such as pop.mindspring.com, which is why older guides look domain specific.
Does EarthLink need an app password?
No. EarthLink issues no app-specific passwords and has no page for creating one. A mail client signs in with the password for that mailbox. If a correct password is still refused, the cause is usually the authentication mechanism rather than the credential, since EarthLink advertises no standard SASL mechanism before login.
Is my EarthLink mail stored on your servers?
No. Messages are fetched live from EarthLink over IMAP for each request and passed to your AI client. Credentials are encrypted at rest and message bodies are not retained.
Give your AI an EarthLink inbox
Your existing email password is all it takes. One inbox free forever, no card required.