Cold Email from Claude Desktop

What this unlocks

Claude Desktop is the closest thing to a real personal assistant most of us have on our laptops right now. With FoxReach connected, Claude can run your cold email operation in the same conversation where you read a contract, draft a memo, or triage your inbox. The tools are named, typed, and chainable - Claude picks which ones to call.

Under the hood, it is the FoxReach MCP server - 36 tools across leads, campaigns, sequences, templates, and email accounts. You do not write code. You do not parse tool schemas. You ask Claude to do the thing and Claude calls the right tools in the right order.

Prerequisites

• Claude Desktop (Mac or Windows)

  Download free from claude.ai/download. This guide uses the native desktop app.

• A FoxReach account

  Free plan is enough to try this end-to-end. Sign up at foxreach.io and connect at least one sending inbox.

• The Google account that matches your FoxReach email

  The connection uses Google sign-in, not an API key. Tool calls only work when the Google email matches your FoxReach account email.

Install in 5 minutes

Step 1: Open Connectors

In Claude Desktop, open Settings → Connectors and click Add custom connector. No config file, no editor - the whole setup happens in this dialog.

Step 2: Add FoxReach

Enter FoxReach as the name and this as the remote MCP server URL, then save:

https://api.foxreach.io/mcp

There is no API key to paste and no token to manage. Authentication happens in the next step, in your browser.

Step 3: Sign in and verify

Claude Desktop opens a browser window for Google sign-in. Use the same email as your FoxReach account. Any Google account can get through the sign-in screen, but tool calls only work when the email matches your FoxReach account.

Check the tool icon near the message input - FoxReach should appear in the list with 36 tools. Type a first prompt to verify the connection works:

Claude calls list_campaigns, summarizes the result in a table, and asks if you want to drill into any of them. If that works, every other FoxReach workflow does.

Alternative: config file setup

Prefer claude_desktop_config.json? One catch: a plain url entry does not work for remote servers like FoxReach. Use mcp-remote, a small local proxy, instead. Open Settings → Developer → Edit Config and add this block (Node.js required):

{
 "mcpServers": {
 "foxreach": {
 "command": "npx",
 "args": ["mcp-remote", "https://api.foxreach.io/mcp"]
 }
 }
}

Save the file, fully quit Claude Desktop (Cmd+Q on Mac, File → Exit on Windows), and reopen it. On first use, mcp-remote opens your browser for the same Google sign-in. Use the same email as your FoxReach account here too.

Prompts that work

Six prompts you can paste into Claude Desktop after connecting FoxReach. Each is designed to exercise a specific set of tools and give Claude enough context to chain calls cleanly.

A daily outreach workflow

How a founder or SDR actually uses Claude Desktop + FoxReach in a morning check-in. Five minutes, one conversation, everything done before the first coffee.

1. Pull yesterday's performance. "Show me yesterday's campaign stats by campaign. Flag anything with a reply rate under 2%."
2. Triage the inbox. "List unread inbox messages from the last 12 hours. Classify each as hot, cold, unsubscribe, or OOO. For hot replies, draft a response."
3. Review the drafts. Claude shows you the drafted responses. You edit inline or tell Claude to rewrite with a different tone.
4. Send. "Send the draft to Prospect A. Flag Prospect B for me to call personally."
5. Queue new sends. "Import these 25 new leads into the SaaS Founders campaign. Start sending today."

The entire exchange is five to eight prompts. Claude chains list_inbox_threads → get_inbox_conversation → send_inbox_reply automatically. You describe the outcome, not the sequence.

Troubleshooting

Beyond Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop is the fastest on-ramp for conversational outreach. For code-first workflows, the same MCP server works with Claude Code (terminal-native), Cursor (IDE), and custom agents built on LangChain or CrewAI.

Connecting Claude Code or Cursor follows the same pattern - the same api.foxreach.io/mcp URL, the same Google sign-in, the same 36 tools. Framework agents talk to the REST API instead, using an API key from Settings → API Keys.

Frequently asked questions