Messages Bridge README
The full upstream README, mirrored here for reference. Install config, tool schemas, adoption signals, and an original overview live on the Messages Bridge listing page.
💬 MessagesBridge
Use your iMessage & Contacts inside ChatGPT — through your own Mac.
MessagesBridge is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) connector that lets ChatGPT work with your iMessage conversations and Contacts. It never uploads your messages to a third party — every action runs on your own Mac through a tiny local agent. The cloud piece is only a stateless relay that shuttles requests between ChatGPT and your Mac.
Your Mac is the only place your messages are ever read or contacts written. The relay stores only short-lived job payloads and your account record; it never sees a message unless a job is in flight, and jobs expire in seconds.
For users — 3 steps
1. Create your account at messagesbridge.vercel.app and generate a pairing code.
2. Install the Mac agent (needs Node 18+):
The agent needs two macOS permissions, granted once: Full Disk Access so it can read your message history (System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access), and Automation the first time it sends a message or reads Contacts — macOS asks "Terminal wants to control Messages" and to access Contacts; click OK.
3. Connect ChatGPT: Settings → Plugins → turn on Developer mode (Security & login) → Create a custom plugin → paste the MCP Server URL https://messagesbridge.vercel.app/mcp → Authentication OAuth → sign in & Allow.
That's it. In a new chat: "Search my messages for the dinner plans" or "Text Sarah that I'm running 10 minutes late." (You confirm every send before it goes out.)
Your Mac must be awake with the agent running.
npx apple-messages-agent installmakes it start automatically at login and restart if it ever crashes.
Managing the agent
What ChatGPT can do
| Tool | Action |
|---|---|
search_messages | Search your iMessage/SMS history by keyword |
list_recent_threads | List recent conversations, newest first, with a last-message preview |
get_thread | Read one conversation in order (by phone, email, or chat id) |
send_message | Send an iMessage to one recipient (you confirm first — no bulk) |
search_contacts | Find people by name (returns their phones + emails) |
get_contact | Read one contact by name or id |
create_contact | Add a contact (name, optional phone/email) |
Reads come first; the only write tools are send_message and create_contact, and each is confirmed by you in ChatGPT before it runs. Sends always go to one recipient at a time — never in bulk.
Self-hosting
You can run your own relay so nothing depends on the hosted instance.
Prereqs: a Vercel account and a Supabase project (free tiers are fine).
- Storage — in your Supabase project's SQL editor, run
supabase/schema.sql. It creates a tiny Redis-shaped KV + queue surface (nb_*functions) with RLS on. - Deploy the
server/directory to Vercel. - Set env vars (see
server/.env.example):SUPABASE_URL,SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY— your project + service-role keyJWT_SECRET—openssl rand -hex 32
- Verify:
curl https://YOUR-APP.vercel.app/api/health→redisConfigured,redisOk,jwtSecretSetalltrue. - Point the agent at it:
npx apple-messages-agent pair <CODE> --server https://YOUR-APP.vercel.app.
How it works
- Auth — OAuth 2.1 with PKCE and Dynamic Client Registration (RFC 7591). ChatGPT registers itself, the user signs in on the MessagesBridge consent page, and ChatGPT gets a scoped MCP access token. JWTs are HMAC-signed; three kinds (
session,agent,mcp) with distinct privileges. Optional email verification via Resend (RESEND_API_KEY); off unless configured, and enforcement is opt-in (REQUIRE_EMAIL_VERIFICATION). - Relay — MCP tool call → job pushed to
jobs:<user>(TTL ≤ the caller's wait window, so an abandoned job can't run late) → the Mac agent (holding a hanging long-poll) is handed the job within ~200ms, executes it, pushes the result → the MCP handler returns it. The long-poll means jobs are delivered on arrival rather than on a fixed interval, so relay overhead is ~300ms instead of ~1s. The agent is considered "online" only while it's actively connected. - Agent — a dependency-free Node CLI. Read tools query the Messages
chat.dbdirectly (read-only SQLite); send and contact tools run via JXA (osascript -l JavaScript) against Messages.app and Contacts; arguments are passed as JSON over argv (never shell-interpolated). A macOS LaunchAgent keeps it alive across logins and crashes.
Repository layout
Development
Security & privacy
- Messages are read and sent, and contacts read and added, only on your Mac. The relay never persists message content — job payloads live in Redis-shaped storage with a short TTL and are deleted on delivery.
- The agent token is stored at
~/.messagesbridge-agent.json(mode600). - No secrets are committed; see
.gitignoreand the.env.examplefiles. - Write tools are marked destructive so ChatGPT asks before it sends a message or adds a contact — every send goes to one confirmed recipient at a time, never in bulk.
License
MIT © Isaiah Dupree