The problem: Claude has no idea what's in your inbox
Ask Claude to help with something that depends on an actual email — "what did the client say about the invoice," "find the thread where we agreed on the launch date," "draft a reply to the message from yesterday" — and by default it can't. Claude has no channel into your inbox at all. You end up doing the finding yourself: searching Gmail, copying the relevant text, pasting it into the chat, and only then getting Claude's help with what to do about it.
That's backwards for the kind of question where the email itself is the whole point. The fix isn't a smarter Claude, it's giving Claude a real, permissioned way to search your inbox the same way it can already reason over text you paste in — so it can go find the relevant message itself instead of waiting for you to hand it over.
This guide covers the two-step version of that: connecting Claude to Great Arrow Digital as an MCP connector, then connecting Gmail so Claude has something real to search once it's there.
How it works
The connection has two distinct layers, and it matters that they're separate. First, Claude connects to Great Arrow Digital's MCP (Model Context Protocol) server at https://www.greatarrowdigital.com/api/mcp — this is what gives Claude a channel into your workspace at all, independent of what's actually connected inside it. Claude Desktop uses a one-click deeplink for this; Claude.ai on the web uses a guided OAuth connector flow through Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector.
Second, and separately, you connect Gmail itself inside your Great Arrow Digital account, from your integration settings. This is its own OAuth consent screen — Google's, not Claude's — and it's what actually gives the platform (and, through it, Claude) permission to read your inbox. Connecting Claude without connecting Gmail gets you a working assistant with nothing email-specific to search; connecting Gmail without connecting Claude means the data is there but no AI client can reach it yet. You need both.
Once both are connected, Gmail content becomes part of your searchable workspace memory, encrypted at rest, and reachable the same way any other stored memory is — Claude checks it as part of answering a question that touches your specifics, rather than you having to paste content in by hand.
Setting it up
- Create your account. Sign up at /sign-up — no credit card required for the 14-day trial.
- Connect Claude as an MCP connector. Go to /install, signed in, and choose Claude. Claude Desktop is a one-click install; Claude.ai (web) walks you through a guided OAuth connection under Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector.
- Connect Gmail in your integration settings. From your account, find Gmail among the available integrations and start the connection — this opens Google's own OAuth consent screen, separate from the Claude connector you just set up.
- Approve the requested access. Google shows you exactly what's being requested — read access to your inbox and messages, plus permission to send on your behalf. Approve it to finish connecting.
- Give it a moment to sync, then test it. Ask Claude something that depends on a real email — a recent message, a specific sender, a subject line you remember — and confirm the answer reflects actual inbox content rather than a generic response.
What connecting Gmail actually gives Claude access to
Great Arrow Digital's use of Gmail data follows the Google API Services User Data Policy, including its Limited Use requirements — the data isn't sold, and it isn't used for advertising. Concretely, what's connected is read-only access to your inbox, message metadata, and attachments, which get ingested into your workspace memory so they're searchable, plus separate send-only access that lets Claude send a message on your behalf when you explicitly ask it to. Reading and sending are distinct permissions; connecting Gmail doesn't mean every action is available by default, just that both are possible once you use them.
When Claude answers a question using something from your inbox, the specific content it references is sent to the AI provider handling that request solely to produce your answer — it isn't used to train models for any third party, and it isn't used for the platform's own model training without your separately-given consent. You can revoke Gmail access at any time from your integration settings; doing so deletes the stored credentials within 24 hours and revokes the token at the source.
Where to go next
For the deeper walkthrough of exactly what Claude can do with a connected Gmail — search patterns, what shows up in results — see Claude MCP Server for Gmail. If Slack is another place your team's context lives, Connect Slack to Your AI Assistant covers adding that the same way.