Is it safe to let Claude read your iMessages?

Yes, with real limits. Once you switch on Messages in Pomeroy, Claude can read your iMessage and text conversations on your Mac, the same as if you had pasted them into the chat yourself. It cannot send a message or a reply, under any prompt, and it never asks for Full Disk Access to get at them.

What can Claude find in my Messages?

Claude can list your recent conversations and who is in them, search the text of every message you have, and read one conversation's recent messages back to you. It cannot write anything: no message, no reply, no deletion, ever.

That covers what most people actually want from their message history: finding a fact buried in an old thread, catching up on a conversation you lost track of, or checking who has been in touch this week. You ask in plain English and Claude reads what it needs to answer.

Some prompts that work today:

• "Find the message with the door code."
• "What did Sam say about the weekend?"
• "Read me my latest messages from Mum."
• "Who has messaged me this week?"
• "What was the name of the restaurant in my messages with Jo?"

What can't Claude do with my Messages?

Claude cannot send a message or a reply, and it cannot delete anything. There is no action in Pomeroy for sending or deleting, so no prompt can talk Claude into one: the capability simply is not there to be talked into.

If you want a reply sent, Claude can still help you write it. It can read the conversation and draft the words, and you paste them into Messages and send them yourself. Pomeroy will not close that loop for you, on purpose: sending as you is a decision only you get to make.

How does Pomeroy get access to my messages, and how do I take it away?

There is no macOS permission prompt for Messages, because Pomeroy does not ask for the sweeping access that would need. Instead, a normal file dialog opens once and you hand Pomeroy the one file Messages keeps your conversations in.

Pomeroy keeps a read-only bookmark to that file and never requests Full Disk Access, the broad permission that would let it read anything else on your Mac. Switch Messages off in Pomeroy at any time and the bookmark is all it loses; switch it on again later and you are asked to hand over the file again. Nothing about your messages is sent anywhere by Pomeroy: what Claude reads becomes part of your conversation with Claude, handled from there under Anthropic's privacy policy, the same as any text you paste in by hand.

How do I connect Claude to my Messages?

Setup is four steps and takes a couple of minutes: download Pomeroy, switch Messages on and hand it the conversations file when it asks, install the Claude extension when Pomeroy offers it, then ask Claude something.

Download Pomeroy to start. It needs Claude Desktop and macOS 15 or later, and it is free for 50 actions a week before anything is asked of you.

Is this the same as Anthropic's own iMessage plugin?

No. Anthropic's iMessage plugin is built for Claude Code: it reads the Messages database directly, needs Full Disk Access for your Terminal, and can send replies through Messages so you can text your assistant from your phone.

Pomeroy is a separate app for Claude Desktop, made by its founder and not by Anthropic. It reads only the one file you hand it, never asks for Full Disk Access, and has no way to send anything. If you are weighing the two, the difference is exactly there: how much of your Mac each one can see, and whether either can act as you.

Is it safe to give Claude access to iMessage?

As safe as pasting the same messages into Claude yourself, because that is close to what happens. Pomeroy reads only the one file you picked, keeps a read-only bookmark to it, and has no tool that can send, so Claude cannot reply as you or be talked into it by a clever prompt.

The one thing worth remembering is that whatever Claude reads becomes part of that conversation, so it is worth asking about the messages you would be comfortable pasting in by hand. See the FAQ for more on where your data goes once Claude has read it, and who builds Pomeroy.

Can Claude read my Mail and Notes the same way?

Yes. Mail, Messages and Notes each start switched off, and each is its own switch in Pomeroy: turning one on does not turn on the others. Claude can search and read your mail and your notes on your Mac the same way it reads Messages, and similar limits apply: Pomeroy cannot send mail, and it never edits or deletes an existing note.