Using Melvin from Claude and ChatGPT
Melvin is a connector that lets Claude, ChatGPT and other AI apps do things on your own Mac and iPhone: your calendar, reminders, mail, notes, files, music, home and more. This page covers setting it up, what it can do, how you stay in control, and how to take it back.
1. Add Melvin to your AI
Every AI app uses the same address: https://trymelvin.com/mcp
Claude
On claude.ai, open Settings, then Connectors. Choose Add custom connector, name it Melvin and paste the address. Once added, it also works in Claude's desktop and phone apps.
ChatGPT
Find Melvin in ChatGPT's app directory and press Connect. Until it is listed there, open Settings, then Apps & Connectors, turn on Developer mode under Advanced, choose Create, paste the address and pick OAuth.
2. Sign in
Your AI app opens a Melvin page for a moment and comes back connected. If you are signed in to Melvin in that browser, it connects your account. If not, Melvin makes an account for this connection, and the link your AI gives you in the next step joins it to your Mac or iPhone.
3. Connect a Mac or iPhone
The first time a task needs a device, your AI gives you one link. On a Mac it installs Melvin from the download page; on an iPhone it opens the Melvin app. Melvin asks there for the permissions it needs, such as Calendars or Reminders, and the task runs.
A Mac must be awake with Melvin open for a task to run. If it is not, your AI says so straight away rather than running the task later without you.
What your AI can do
Grouped by area. What each area can reach is limited to what you allowed on that device.
Devices, files and shortcuts
- See your Mac and iPhone: whether each one is online, its battery, and the free space on your Mac.
- Find files by name, kind, size and date, find duplicates, and see what is taking up space. It sees names, sizes and dates, never what is inside a file.
- Organize, rename and move files, and create folders, in folders you allow. A change is planned before anything moves, never overwrites or deletes a file, and can be undone.
- Move files to the Trash, after you approve it in your AI app. Put Back in Finder restores them.
- Copy files from your Mac to your iPhone, and photos from your iPhone to your Mac.
- Open apps on your Mac.
- See the names of your shortcuts, and run them on your Mac or iPhone. It gets back whatever a shortcut returns.
Read and search your mail on your Mac and in the Gmail account you connected in Melvin, write drafts there, file messages, set up Mail rules that sort new mail after you approve each one on your Mac, and send mail, now or at a time you set, after you approve it in your AI app.
Notes
Find, read, create and change notes in Apple Notes on your Mac, move them between folders, make folders, and save the files attached to them. Your AI app asks you before deleting a note.
Calendar
See your calendars and add or change events, and on your Mac invite people to them. Your AI app asks you before deleting an event or sending invitations.
Reminders
See your reminders, add them, complete them and change them. Your AI app asks you before deleting one.
Contacts
Look people up in your contacts, add cards, import vCards and change them. Your AI app asks you before deleting or merging cards.
Messages
Read and search your messages and the files people sent you, see your recent calls on your Mac, and send messages, photos and files to people and group chats, as iMessage or as SMS through your iPhone, and send an iMessage at a time you set, after you approve each one in your AI app.
Slack
Read and search the Slack account you connected in Melvin, and post or set your status after you approve each one in your AI app.
Google Docs
Find, read and add to Google Docs in the account you connected in Melvin. Your AI app asks you before replacing a section.
Google Calendar and Sheets
See and add events in the Google Calendar, and read the Google Sheets, of the account you connected in Melvin. Adding an event invites nobody.
Notion
Search, read and query the Notion pages and databases you shared with Melvin, add to pages and create new ones.
Microsoft 365
Search and read the Outlook mail and calendar, Teams chats and OneDrive files of the Microsoft account you connected in Melvin, write Outlook drafts and add events, and send a Teams message after you approve it in your AI app.
Files
List and read files in the folders you allow on your Mac, and copy, zip, tag and create text files there.
Documents
Read PDFs, images and Pages, Numbers and Keynote files you allow, and make edited copies or add to them, on your Mac or in Melvin's folder on your iPhone, and on your Mac fill in PDF forms and make PDFs of documents.
Apps
See which apps are open on your Mac and how long you used them, arrange their windows and quit them, or force quit one that is frozen. An app with unsaved work asks you first, and you are asked before a force quit, which loses unsaved work.
Safari and browsers
See your open tabs, history and bookmarks in Safari and your other browsers on your Mac, and Safari's tabs on your other devices; read the page you have open; open pages in Safari, add them to your Reading List, open and switch tabs in Chrome, Arc, Edge and Brave, and close tabs after you approve it in your AI app. On your iPhone, add pages to Safari's Reading List, and block sites and trackers or hide parts of pages in Safari with Melvin's blocker.
Clipboard
Read and set the clipboard on your Mac or iPhone. Passwords and codes it can recognize are hidden.
Music
See what is playing, play, pause and choose music, and add to your library on your Mac or iPhone, and on your Mac choose AirPlay speakers, control Spotify, and play and browse videos in the TV app.
Notifications
Show notifications, speak aloud and save speech as audio files on your Mac or iPhone, and read the notifications your apps showed on your Mac. Codes such as sign-in codes are hidden.
Memory
Read and change what Melvin remembers about you on your Mac, and ask your iPhone what it remembers of your days: places, calendar, photos taken, music, Focus, alarms and AI tasks, kept on the iPhone. Health only when asked.
Alarms
Set, snooze and cancel alarms and timers on your iPhone.
Health
Read your Health data on your iPhone, add entries to it and put workouts on your Apple Watch. Your AI app asks you before removing entries.
Motion
Read steps and activity from your iPhone, and its compass and other sensors.
Places
Know where your iPhone or Mac is, find places nearby, get travel times, directions and the weather on either, keep your saved places and remind you when to leave on your iPhone, and open places in Maps on your iPhone or Mac.
Photos
Search your photos by date, place and text in them, organize and save photos, save copies from Photos on your Mac into your folders, and make shorter or smaller copies of videos. Your AI app asks you before deleting.
Calls and texts
Start calls from your iPhone or Mac, and fill in texts and emails on your iPhone. You press Send yourself, and your device asks before each call.
iPhone files
See, read and change the files in Melvin's folder on your iPhone, and in the one folder you choose for your AI in Melvin's Settings. Your AI app asks you before deleting.
Audio
Record, play and transcribe voice memos, take dictation, name songs and listen for sounds such as a doorbell on your iPhone; find, play and transcribe your Voice Memos recordings on your Mac, and record and transcribe meetings there from its microphone and the sound of your other apps, which macOS shows it is doing. A voice memo on your iPhone keeps recording or playing after you leave Melvin until it is stopped; dictation, naming songs and listening for sounds happen while Melvin is open.
Scanning
Open the camera on your iPhone for you to scan a document or a code, make QR codes and barcodes, and read or write NFC tags you hold to it.
Wallet and Books
Read Wallet passes, offer them to Wallet for you to add, find and open books, and read your Apple Books highlights on your Mac.
iPhone settings
Turn the flashlight on or off and set the screen brightness on your iPhone, show progress on its Lock Screen, and pin a note to Melvin's widget.
Apple Card and Cash
See the balances and transactions of your Apple Card, Apple Cash and Apple Savings on your iPhone, and add up your spending. Account numbers are never shown.
App and website blocks
Block and unblock groups of apps and websites for as long as you say: on your Mac, groups your AI makes, where Melvin quits those apps and closes those websites' tabs while it runs; on your iPhone, the groups you set up in Melvin.
Translation
Translate text and tell what language it is in, with Apple's own translation on your iPhone or Mac.
Home
See and control your home's accessories and scenes. Your AI app asks you before unlocking, opening or disarming.
Scheduled checks
Run the reading tools you choose on your devices at a time you set, such as your agenda every morning, and show what they found as a notification. No AI runs then.
Goals and ideas
See and update the goals you keep in Melvin, and the ideas Melvin suggested.
App control
Read and use apps on your Mac: see their windows, press buttons, type and choose menu commands, and see your Mac's screen, save pictures of it and record it once you allow Melvin to record the screen in macOS. Your AI app asks you before it presses, types or chooses anything.
Web
Search the web, read web addresses, send requests to them and download files into your Downloads folder. On Melvin Agent, also use websites for you in Melvin's cloud browser, signed in where you saved a login; your AI app asks you before each task or step on a website.
Scripts and Terminal
Run Terminal commands, AppleScript and Melvin's ready-made scripts on your Mac, and replace text files, the old version kept in the Trash. Melvin never runs one that asks for admin rights, reads saved passwords, sign-ins or private keys, or turns off macOS's protections.
Mac controls
Change your Mac's volume, speaker, microphone, brightness, appearance, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and VPN connections and wallpaper, join Wi-Fi networks on your Mac or iPhone, keep it awake, sleep its display, lock its screen, see what Mac it is, its updates, apps, battery, drives, printer list and print jobs, scanners, backups and how busy it is, start a backup, print, scan paper into a PDF, eject drives, open pages in your browser, and tell you on your Mac when something happens. Your AI app asks you before restarting, shutting down or sleeping it, cancelling a print job or emptying the Trash.
App actions
Run actions your apps offer to Shortcuts, for the apps you add in Melvin on your Mac or iPhone. Your AI app asks you before each action runs.
Automations
Set up automations on your Mac that act on new files or on a schedule, after you approve each one on your Mac. Sending or deleting still asks you each time.
Sending later
See and cancel the iMessages and emails this app scheduled to be sent later from your Mac. Each goes only if your Mac is awake with Melvin open at its time, and Melvin tells you if it could not.
How approvals work
Reading and other safe actions just run. Anything that deletes, sends, buys or cannot be undone is marked so your AI app asks you first, in the chat, before Melvin does it. Some actions, such as new Mail rules or automations, also wait for you to approve them on your Mac.
Melvin can only use what macOS and iOS let it, which you choose in their permission prompts and can change in System Settings or Settings at any time. Every request your AI made is listed on your Activity page.
Taking access back
In your AI app: in Claude, open Settings, then Connectors, and disconnect or remove Melvin. In ChatGPT, open Settings, then Apps & Connectors, and disconnect Melvin.
In Melvin: on your Devices page, remove a Mac or iPhone, or choose Disconnect all AI apps. The same choice is in the Melvin menu on your Mac. Every AI app stops working at once.
To delete everything, follow the account deletion instructions. See also privacy and security. Questions: support@trymelvin.com.