Show HN: MailPilot – Freedom to go anywhere while your agents work

https://mailpilot.chat

What is this? A local TUI (like Claude, Codex, Gemini, OpenCode or Copilot) that wraps your agent and sends each turn to an email in a nice format.

What does it enable? It lets you email your agents. And them email you. So They Keep Working on the tasks you want, and You go and do What You Want. No need to stay at your desk. Be free.

I built this for me, but thought others would find it useful, so I turned it into a product. I want get outside, and away from my desk, but still have the agents work.

The accidental killer feature: You can CC your team. If you forward the thread to a coworker, their reply goes straight to the agent context too. It turns a local session into an async multiplayer thread.

Works out of the box with Claude, Codex, Gemini, Copilot, and OpenCode. Happy to answer questions!

https://mailpilot.chat

16 points | by keepamovin 7 hours ago

6 comments

petcat 2 hours ago
> Local and private
> Your agent runs on your machine. We only relay the messages.
How can this be private if this intermediate service is sending and receiving all the emails back and forth
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- keepamovin 59 minutes ago
  Just in that your agent runs on your local machine, has access to your local filesystem, and no code execution happens on our cloud, and that we don't look at or store the emails. Pure relay, so it’s just as private as business collaboration on regular email in that sense.
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  - mzajc 23 minutes ago
    Are the emails end to end encrypted (PGP or S/MIME where you/your server don't have the keys) or just in transit (TLS)? That would make the difference between "we can't look at your emails" and "we choose not to look at your emails".
resonious 2 hours ago
I do a very similar thing but clunkier with Tailscale, ssh, zellij. Can ssh in from my phone too with Termux. But email sounds better - then I can actually get notified when it needs me!
I have to say, $12/mo feels steep. It's a minor improvement over what I have now. Compared to other $10+/mo services, this one feels pretty light.
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- Jnr 57 minutes ago
  I have claude code hooks that send local computer notifications when action is required or processing finished. And when I step away from computer, I get those notifications through pushover. Then I login on phone to ssh (mosh) with Termius and connect to the tmux session running claude. I use this approach when watching TV with the family and laptop is not appreciated on the sofa. :)
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  - dewey 19 minutes ago
    Every time I read these "I've managed to control Claude Code from my phone posts", they come with some variation of "so that I can continue being on my computer" during some other activity. It's a very personal decision, but feels like on of these points where people should re-evaluate. Just because we can, doesn't mean we should.
    > it was so good that I caught myself coding from my phone while out with friends… and decided that this is something I should stop, more for mental health than anything.
    https://steipete.me/posts/2025/shipping-at-inference-speed
  - keepamovin 40 minutes ago
    This is smart and the right way!
- keepamovin 2 hours ago
  It is pretty light. Maybe the pricing is wrong, idk. Early days so just figuring things out. The email advantage is as you say -- I always found Terminal on phones very taxing on typing, etc. Email is so much lighter on cognitive load etc. Thanks for having a look and for your feedback!
reactordev 2 hours ago
This is such low hanging fruit. Coding agents can be orchestrated. Controlled, rerun, and tested. Are we just coming up with ways to not be at our desks working? Why not scale out agents on a cluster to do more work? Why email instead of SMS with a web endpoint? I can access each agent of mine via a dashboard from anywhere in the world.
Not trying to poo poo, just saying all it takes is Claude Code to introduce this and you’re done.
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- keepamovin 1 hour ago
  There's a sense in which you're right that it could be cloned easily by a provider. But that's also an advantage in that we work acorss providers, they're not going to create a service that interacts with each other. So it's more of a fit for someone outside the AI providers to do it, but we'll see.
derelicta 1 hour ago
Considering emails are as private as postcards, I don't know how I could rely on such service to prompt anything even remotely sensitive.
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- keepamovin 1 hour ago
  Just like regular email in that sense. We don't do any encryption beyond standard HTTPS and we don't look at the data. It's a paid service, you're not the product.
worthless-trash 1 hour ago
I saw this concept only 8 days on this very site ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46517458#46523962 )
Looking forward to it.
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- keepamovin 1 hour ago
  Missed that! Thanks for the link. Definitely feels like this kind of idea is zeitgeist rn.
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  - homebessguy 41 minutes ago
    Coincidental that the domain was registered on the same day... it's fine to say you were inspired to build from the discussion.
    Why do your privacy and terms state they were updated on February 28, 2025?
keepamovin 4 hours ago
Also, I made a Product Hunt: https://www.producthunt.com/products/mailpilot