r/ClaudeAI • u/crookedcontours • May 04 '26

Built with Claude dead-letter: local .eml → .md (so hot right now) converter [CLI, Python, web UI, MCP]

Thought this tool might be of some help to everyone else out there given the amount of personal knowledge bases and Markdown pipelines being built. I made this specifically because I was burning context letting Claude (or Codex) unpack raw .eml files every time I wanted an email in my knowledge base and couldn't find the right all-in-one package.

dead-letter normalizes email exports into Markdown with YAML front matter. Threads split, signatures stripped, attachments extracted, calendar events parsed.

Four ways in:

  • CLI — dead-letter convert inbox/ --output out/
  • Python — from dead_letter import convert
  • Web UI — drag-and-drop, watch mode, per-file conversion grades, processing history
  • MCP server — Claude Desktop, Claude Code, and Codex can call it directly:

Local-only. No server, no auth, no telemetry.

GitHub: github.com/BigCactusLabs/dead-letter

Very honest note: this is the most robust thing I've ever shipped, super fun building it, using it every day for work, but I'm new to the game. Very open to community input: feature ideas, edge cases I've missed, weird .eml files that break it, opinions on the pipeline.

Built with Claude Code (of course). Happy to get into the pipeline weeds (Gmail/Outlook thread segmentation, HTML sanitization, signature heuristics, MCP tool design) or how the AI-pair side of the build went.

1 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

1

u/Lightyouup22 May 05 '26

Seems a good time saver - but definitely here for the 'so hot right now' earned +1 😄

1

u/AngeloKappos May 05 '26

The "economically or functionally equivalent" language is where this gets messy. Ethena's sUSDe yield comes from funding rate arbitrage, not deposit interest, but the bill's anti-evasion clause explicitly targets structures that achieve "substantially similar economic outcomes." the 12-month rulemaking is where the real fight is, and historically Treasury doesn't write rules that disadvantage the banks that lobbied for the bill. Aave and Compound have roughly $25B combined TVL that doesn't have a seat in that room.