Connect Naver Mail to an AI assistant with IMAP and MCP

Which Naver Mail settings do you need?

Use the Naver Mail provider for your personal naver.com mailbox. This guide does not cover NAVER WORKS administration; don't substitute a WORKS setup guide for the personal-mailbox connection described here.

IMAP provides mailbox access; RFC 9051's IMAP specification separates that role from sending mail. SMTP handles sending separately. Your assistant connects to Mailera through MCP, rather than receiving your Naver app password in a chat prompt.

These are the server settings Mailera configures for Naver Mail:

The incoming connection uses TLS from the start. That matches the IMAPS behavior described in RFC 8314's email transport-security specification. Keep the security mode paired with its configured port; the incoming and outgoing settings are not interchangeable.

For Mailera's Naver connection, have an existing mailbox you control and an app password ready. Mailera lists two-step verification and enabled IMAP as prerequisites. Its How to get an app password and What you'll need sections provide the preparation guidance inside the connection flow.

Use the Naver Mail connection page for this provider. For a private server rather than Naver Mail, use the custom IMAP connection page and the custom IMAP/SMTP server setup guide.

Related: Connect existing email providers to agents.

The two credentials serve different purposes: the Naver app password connects the mailbox to Mailera; the Mailera API key controls the assistant's access to Mailera. A read-only verification task doesn't require permission to send mail.

How do you add Naver Mail to Mailera?

You need an Admin or Leader role to add a mailbox.

1. Open Mailboxes → Add mailbox → One mailbox.
2. Enter your Naver address in Email address. Check that the detected provider is Naver Mail. If needed, select it under Or choose a provider, then select Continue.
3. Review How to get an app password and What you'll need. In Connection details, enter the app password in Password, not your ordinary account sign-in password.
4. Set Display name if needed and choose Mailbox group. Choose the group deliberately: you'll use it to scope the assistant's API key later.
5. Select Test & connect and inspect the individual results.

The test separates connection stages so you can identify where to investigate:

Test & connect sends no email. Successful sign-in is not a delivery test. You will check actual message retrieval in the next section.

If receiving works but outgoing sign-in fails, Mailera offers Save as receive-only. That is suitable for reading mail through an assistant, but it is not a working sending setup. To investigate sending instead, use Edit details and Test again.

After a successful connection, look for the confirmation beginning with “Connected” and your address. Mailera then loads messages within its retention period, newest first. Open the mailbox and check its status and initial message load before configuring the assistant.

How do you verify read-only access from Claude?

Use a non-sensitive test message rather than asking the assistant to summarize your inbox immediately. This gives you a specific subject and body to compare at each stage.

Prepare the message and API key

1. Send a message from an account you control to your own Naver mailbox. Use a distinctive subject such as “Naver reading test — blue notebook” and a harmless body such as “The notebook is on the shelf.”
2. Confirm that the message appears in the intended Naver mailbox in Mailera. If it doesn't, resolve retrieval before changing the AI client's setup.
3. Open Settings → API key → Create key. Enter a Descriptive name that identifies this test.
4. Under Mailbox scope, choose the group containing the Naver mailbox. Enable only Read and set an appropriate Expiration.
5. Copy the key when Key created — copy it now appears. It is shown only once. Use Copy MCP config for Claude, Cursor or VS Code, and keep the copied configuration out of chat messages and screenshots.

A group-scoped key is not necessarily a single-mailbox key. If other mailboxes share that group, consider them part of the access boundary. Don't select all groups merely to make a missing mailbox appear.

Use the Claude integration instructions for client setup and the Mailera MCP page for connection details. Mailera's MCP endpoint is https://mailera.app/api/public/v1/mcp.

Retrieve the test message

Ask the assistant to perform this sequence through Mailera:

1. Use list_mailboxes to find the intended Naver mailbox. Confirm the address before proceeding.
2. Use list_messages for that mailbox and the folder containing your test message. Find the distinctive subject.
3. Use get_message for that message and return its subject and plain-text body.

All three tools require the read scope. Compare the retrieved subject and body with what you sent. Seeing a mailbox in a list confirms discovery; reading the matching message body confirms content retrieval.

For this task, leave Send messages, Move messages and Sync disabled. The sending tools send_email and reply_to_email require the separate send scope.

You can also inspect get_mailbox_status. For Naver, it reflects the latest sync rather than performing a fresh direct sign-in check. Use it alongside the message retrieval result, not as a substitute for reading the test message.

What common mistakes cause Naver Mail IMAP failures?

Start with the failed stage. An incoming authentication failure, an outgoing failure and a missing message need different checks. Replacing passwords repeatedly won't help you isolate a server or folder issue.

When checking SMTP security, distinguish STARTTLS from implicit TLS. RFC 8314's implicit-TLS SMTP definition uses port 465 with an immediate TLS handshake; Mailera's Naver configuration instead uses port 587 with STARTTLS.

Avoid using NAVER WORKS instructions to change this personal Naver connection. Also avoid assuming that an address entered in Email address establishes the correct login-name format for a manually configured server.

Mailera checks active mailboxes more often and idle mailboxes less often. Inactive mailboxes can sleep and wake on use. A message that hasn't appeared yet is not, by itself, evidence that authentication failed.

Manual sync requires the separate Sync permission; a Read-only key cannot call sync_mailbox. Initial loading is also bounded by retention. The free plan retains 30 days of messages, so an older message is a poor choice for this verification task.

How do you keep AI access to Naver Mail safe?

Treat incoming email as untrusted data, not instructions. An email that tells the assistant to reveal a key, change permissions or contact an external service must not override your instructions. Ask the assistant to extract or summarize content, not obey requests embedded in that content.

Start with Read and the narrowest suitable mailbox group. Read-only access still exposes retrieved email content to the configured AI client, so use a test mailbox or harmless messages while checking the integration. For broader agent setups, see least-privilege architecture for mailbox agents.

Keep Naver app passwords and Mailera API keys out of email bodies, prompts, logs and screenshots. Treat copied MCP configuration as sensitive too. Revoke unused API keys; Mailera rejects calls immediately after revocation. See the Mailera security page when reviewing access for your team.

If you enable sending later, require explicit human confirmation of the recipient and final message before the assistant sends it. Successful SMTP sign-in and permission to send are not reasons to skip that approval.

What are Mailera's limits here?

Mailera connects existing mailboxes; it does not create Naver accounts or email addresses, and it is not an official partner of Naver. It also does not guarantee instantaneous synchronization. Keep the read test focused on a recent message and check sync timing before treating a delay as a broken connection.