GitHub Copilot How to use Gmail with GitHub Copilot
You want Gmail inside GitHub Copilot so it can clear a backlogged inbox, draft replies you would have written yourself, find the one thread you half-remember, and chase the things waiting on other people — without you copy-pasting between tabs. Here is the whole setup, once.
Create your Gmail gateway
The gateway is the thing GitHub Copilot connects to, and it is where you decide which Gmail tools an agent may use. You create it once and every client reuses it.
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Create an Arcade account
Sign up and open the dashboard. The free tier is enough to follow this through.
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Create an MCP Gateway and select your Gmail tools
In the dashboard, create a gateway and pick the Gmail tools you want to expose. The gateway is what your client connects to, and it is where tool access is decided.
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Copy your gateway URL
Every client below needs it.
https://api.arcade.dev/mcp/<YOUR-GATEWAY-SLUG>
Connect the gateway to GitHub Copilot
JetBrains IDEs do not support remote MCP servers with Dynamic Client Registration — configure the gateway as “Arcade Headers” in the dashboard first. Setup also differs on Visual Studio, Eclipse and Xcode; check the docs for yours.
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In VS Code
Copilot picks up MCP servers configured in VS Code automatically, so follow the VS Code steps and you are done.
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In JetBrains IDEs
Copilot icon → Open Chat → Agent mode → tools icon → “+ Add More Tools…”, which opens mcp.json.
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Add the gateway with Arcade Headers
{ "servers": { "mcp-arcade": { "url": "https://api.arcade.dev/mcp/<YOUR-GATEWAY-SLUG>", "requestInit": { "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer {arcade_api_key}", "Arcade-User-ID": "{arcade_user_id}" } } } } }
Full GitHub Copilot guide in the docs steps verified 2026-08-13
Get started with these Gmail prompts
GitHub Copilot can now act on your Gmail account. Click a prompt to copy it.
Thinking “this is one prompt injection away from my inbox leaking”? So do we. That is what Contextual Access policies are for — approval before anything is sent or deleted, redaction on the message bodies that never needed to reach the model.
