Can Claude connect to Apple Calendar, Reminders, Mail and Notes on your Mac?
Yes. By default, Claude can't touch your Apple apps: Apple Notes has no public API to begin with, and Claude Desktop and Cowork each run in their own sandbox with no route to Reminders, Calendar, Mail, or Messages. Orchard for macOS is the local bridge that closes that gap.
Why Claude can't see your Apple apps out of the box
Apple's own apps live behind Apple's own permission system, with no cloud API on the other side for Claude to call. Claude Desktop runs as a regular sandboxed Mac app with no special access to Reminders or Calendar, and Claude Cowork runs in an isolated environment that can't see anything installed on your Mac at all, including a command-line tool. Without a local bridge, "add this to my calendar" stays a sentence Claude can produce but not act on.
What Claude can do with your Apple apps
Once Orchard is connected, these are real requests Claude can act on, not hypotheticals — copied straight from Orchard's own per-app documentation.
Reminders
- “Remind me to call the dentist tomorrow at 10am.”
- “Show me everything on my Groceries list that isn't done yet.”
Calendar
- “Schedule a team sync tomorrow from 2 to 3pm and remind me 15 minutes and 1 hour before.”
- “What's on my calendar next week?”
- “Search my email for anything from Sarah about the contract.”
- “What are my unread emails from today?”
Notes
- “Create a note titled 'Trip Packing List' with a checklist of items.”
- “Search my notes for anything mentioning 'Q3 roadmap'.”
Messages
- “Find my conversation with Jamie and show the last few messages.”
- “Send a text to +1 555 123 4567 saying I'm running 10 minutes late.”
Contacts
- “Find Jamie's phone number and email address.”
- “Add a new contact for Alex Rivera, works at Acme Inc as VP of Sales, mobile 555-0142.”
Orchard also covers five more apps — Maps, Apple Music, Weather, Clock, and Shortcuts — each with its own example prompts on its documentation page. Maps, for instance, can handle “Find coffee shops within walking distance of the Ferry Building in San Francisco.”
Three ways to connect Claude
- Claude Code — install the Orchard Agent Skill in one click from the app. This is the recommended path: it ships richer usage guidance than the MCP fallback.
- Claude Desktop & Cowork — Claude Desktop imports the same kind of Skill package; Cowork's isolated sandbox can't reach the Mac CLI, so it uses Orchard's MCP connection through Claude Desktop instead.
- The orchard CLI — Claude Code, and any other agent that can run a shell command, can call
orcharddirectly with structured JSON output.
Set up Claude Code
- Open Orchard from the menu bar and sign in if you have not already.
- During onboarding, continue to the Use Orchard with Skills step. Outside onboarding, open the app integrations list and find the Local Agents row.
- Click Install. Orchard writes the Skill package to three locations at once: ~/.agents/skills/orchard (the primary Agent Skills path), ~/.claude/skills/orchard (Claude Code's personal Skill location), and ~/.codex/skills/orchard (a compatibility path for existing Codex setups).
- Quit and reopen any running Claude Code session so it picks up the new Skill.
Full walkthrough, including manual install and troubleshooting, is in the Claude Code connection guide.
Set up Claude Desktop and Cowork
Claude Desktop imports the Orchard Skill the same way Claude Code does, from Orchard's
Use Orchard with Skills screen. Cowork's shell runs in an isolated
environment and can't see the orchard command on your Mac, so the Skill
bundled with Orchard 0.6.2 and later detects Cowork and routes its calls through Claude
Desktop's MCP-configured orchard entry instead. Install both pieces — the
Skill and the MCP configuration — from the same setup screen, click Verify on the MCP row,
then fully restart Claude Desktop. Full steps, including the manual config fallback, are in
the Claude Desktop and Cowork guide.
Private by design
Orchard runs no HTTP server and opens no network port. Tool calls travel over a local Unix domain socket between your AI client and Orchard.app, and nothing about your reminders, calendar, mail, or messages is proxied through an Orchard server, because there isn't one. Full details are in the Privacy Architecture guide.
Frequently asked questions
Can Claude read my Apple Calendar?
Yes. Orchard's Calendar integration reads and writes events through Apple's native EventKit framework, available to Claude Code, Claude Desktop, and Cowork through the Orchard Skill or MCP server. Calendar is free on every plan. See the Calendar app guide for details.
Can Claude send iMessages from my Mac?
Yes. The Messages integration reads your local Messages database and sends through Messages.app, covering both iMessage and SMS, including scheduled sends. It needs Full Disk Access to read and Automation permission to send, and it's a Pro feature. See the Messages app guide for details.
Does this work with Claude Cowork?
Yes. Cowork runs in an isolated sandbox and can't reach the orchard CLI on your Mac directly, so the Orchard Skill detects Cowork and routes tool calls through Claude Desktop's MCP-configured orchard entry instead. See Claude Desktop and Cowork for the full setup.
Does Claude need Full Disk Access?
Only for Mail, Messages, and Notes — Full Disk Access is what lets Orchard read those apps' content directly. Reminders, Calendar, and Contacts each use their own separate permission instead, and Full Disk Access has no system prompt: you add Orchard yourself in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Full Disk Access. See the Permissions Guide for the complete breakdown.
Is Orchard free to use with Claude?
Reminders, Calendar, and Clock are free on one device with no usage limits. Pro unlocks the other 8 apps — Mail, Notes, Messages, Contacts, Maps, Apple Music, Weather, and Shortcuts — on up to three Macs, and a one-time Lifetime license is $39.99. See Free vs Pro for the full breakdown.
Does it work with ChatGPT, Cursor or Raycast too?
Yes. The same Orchard app and the same 52 tools are reachable from ChatGPT, Cursor, Raycast AI, Codex, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot, and any other MCP client through the Orchard MCP server, or the Agent Skill where a client supports it. See the Apple MCP server overview for details.
No HTTP server · No open ports · Local Unix socket · macOS 13 or later