Connect your email, calendar and web search

Bots work with what you connect: your email, your calendar and a web search service. Each is optional and takes a few minutes. This page is the setup, service by service; what bots then do (and what always asks you first) is at the end of each part.

Everything here is set in the app. The passwords and keys are stored in the OS keychain on your computer, or in the server's private database when you self-host; they never go into a bot's instructions.

Email #

Bots can search and read your inbox, write drafts, and send an email when you approve it. They use IMAP and SMTP, the standard mail protocols, with an app password: a separate password just for Mimir that you can revoke any time, without changing your real one.

1. Make an app password #

Outlook, Hotmail and Microsoft 365 mail don't work yet: Microsoft turned off app passwords for mail apps and requires its own sign-in (OAuth), which Mimir doesn't do yet. Your Outlook calendar link does work (below).

2. Add it in Mimir #

Settings → Email: the incoming server, the port (993 unless your provider says otherwise), your address and the app password. The outgoing server is worked out from the incoming one (imap.gmail.com → smtp.gmail.com); fill in Outgoing server only if yours is different. Save signs in once to check, and shows how many messages are in your inbox.

What bots can then do #

Only in a chat with you, never in a group or incognito:

• Search and read: "any emails about the invoice?", "what did Sam say about Friday?". Read-only: nothing is marked read, moved or deleted.
• Draft: "draft a reply to Sam saying yes". The draft (a reply stays in its thread) lands in your Drafts folder; you send it from your mail app.
• Send: "reply to Sam that I'll pay Friday, and send it". Every email asks you, with who it's to first and the whole text on the card; there's no "always" for sending. An email too long to read on the card can't be sent (the bot saves a draft instead), and a chat can send at most 20 a day. A copy lands in your Sent folder, like mail you send yourself (Gmail files one on its own; for iCloud and others, Mimir saves it).
• The Inbox triage skill (Skills) sorts your mail into "needs you", FYI and noise and offers short replies.

Emails are other people's words, so a bot that has read your mail treats it as outside content: changes ask you first, and after reading your mail, opening any web address asks too (a link could carry a code out). See Tools, approvals and safety.

Calendar #

Bots can read your calendar, and put things in it through links you click.

1. Find your calendar's private link #

A read-only address of your calendar in iCal format:

• Google Calendar: Settings → your calendar under Settings for my calendars → Integrate calendar → Secret address in iCal format.
• iCloud: the Calendar app → right-click a calendar → Share Calendar → Public Calendar, copy the link (it starts with webcal://). Unlike Google's secret address, anyone with this link can see that calendar: keep it to yourself.
• Outlook: Settings → Calendar → Shared calendars → Publish a calendar → ICS link.

2. Add it in Mimir #

In the desktop app: Meetings → Calendar, paste the link. Mimir reads it to check, and says how many events are on it this week. (The same link tells Mimir when a meeting starts, for transcription: see Meetings.)

3. Let bots add events (optional) #

Reading uses the link above. For bots to put events straight into your calendar, connect it in Settings → Calendar with an app password (it uses CalDAV, the standard calendar protocol):

The user name is your address. If you connected the same account's email, the server is filled in and the password can stay empty. Connect signs in and finds your calendars; it picks the first one that takes events, and Other calendar lets you choose another. Google Calendar needs Google's own sign-in for this, which Mimir doesn't do yet; there, bots give you add-to-calendar links instead (below).

What bots can then do #

• Read it between two dates, in a chat with you: "what's on tomorrow?", "when am I free on Thursday?". Invites come from anyone, so their titles are outside content.
• Add to it: "put the dentist on Tuesday at 3 in my calendar". With a calendar connected for adding (step 3), the bot asks first, with the whole event on the card ("Add to Home: Tue 13 Oct 15:00–16:00, "Dentist" at Tandarts Zuid"), then adds it. You can press Always for this one. Without, it gives you an add to calendar link for Google Calendar and one for Outlook, with the time, place and notes filled in; you open one and save it.

Web search #

Bots on Claude can already search the web on their own. For bots on any other account (ChatGPT, Grok, OpenRouter, a local model, an API key), connect a search service.

Brave Search (easiest) #

1. Make a free key at brave.com/search/api (the free plan covers personal use).
2. Settings → Web search → Brave Search: paste it and Save.

Or your own SearXNG #

If you run SearXNG (a self-hosted search engine), switch on JSON results in its settings.yml (search: formats: [html, json]) and paste its address in Settings → Web search → Or your own SearXNG. Brave is used when both are set.

What bots can then do #

Search (web_search) and then read the pages that matter (web_fetch). Results are outside content. The search service sees your queries, so once a conversation has read outside content, a search that would carry one of your memories asks you first.

Files #

Nothing to set up: each chat has a small workspace of text files bots keep there (notes, lists, drafts), under Memory → Files. See Memory.

Turning things off #

• Email: Settings → Email → Remove (and revoke the app password with your provider).
• Calendar: Meetings → Calendar → remove the link (or reset the secret address in your calendar's settings); for adding events, Settings → Calendar → Remove.
• Web search: Settings → Web search → Remove the key, or clear the SearXNG address.
• One tool for one bot: the bot's page → its tools. One tool for all bots: Settings → Permissions → deny.