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Using Stow with an AI assistant

Stow includes an optional local connector, an MCP server, that lets an AI assistant on your Mac search your archive when you ask it to.

Before you turn it on

• Off by default. Nothing can reach your archive until you turn the connector on, in Stow's AI assistants settings.
• Per account. You choose which accounts the assistant may search.
• It runs on your Mac. The assistant app starts Stow's connector on your Mac and talks to it directly. There is no Stow server involved.

What leaves your Mac

When the connector is on and you ask your assistant a question, the assistant may ask Stow for matching emails, and Stow passes those results to it. Those results then go wherever your assistant sends your request, usually its provider's servers, and are handled under that provider's privacy policy, not ours. If your assistant uses a model running entirely on your Mac, the results stay on your Mac; check how your assistant is set up.

Stow keeps a local record of each request: the search and how many results were returned, never the content. Turn the connector off at any time to stop this. See the privacy policy.

Setting it up

Most assistants that support MCP can start a local stdio server. In each case you add one server, named stow, whose command is the one shown in Stow's AI assistants settings. Use the Copy button there rather than typing it. If the command has more than one part, the first part is the command and the rest go in args.

The examples below use COMMAND where the copied command goes. Restart the assistant after changing its settings.

Claude (desktop app)

Check against Claude's current documentation.

Open Claude's settings, then Developer, then Edit Config. In claude_desktop_config.json, add:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "stow": {
      "command": "COMMAND",
      "args": []
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

Check against Claude Code's current documentation.

In Terminal:

claude mcp add --scope user stow -- COMMAND

Cursor

Check against Cursor's current documentation.

Add the server to ~/.cursor/mcp.json (for all projects), using the same mcpServers block as for Claude above.

VS Code

Check against VS Code's current documentation.

Run MCP: Open User Configuration from the Command Palette and add:

{
  "servers": {
    "stow": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "COMMAND",
      "args": []
    }
  }
}

LM Studio

Check against LM Studio's current documentation.

In LM Studio, open mcp.json from the Program tab (Install, then Edit mcp.json) and add the same mcpServers block as for Claude above. With a model running in LM Studio on your Mac, search results stay on your Mac.

Other assistants

Any assistant that can start a local stdio MCP server should work the same way. Assistants that only support remote connectors cannot use Stow's connector.