Roles & permissions levels
What they may do, and where.

A role says what somebody may do. An address grant says where they may do it. Nothing happens until both agree.

In short

What is role-based access control?

Role-based access control gives each person a named role, like Admin or Viewer, rather than permissions set one person at a time. Change the role and everyone holding it changes with it.

6

roles every workspace starts with

24

more you can write yourself

35

permissions to tick, in 6 groups

How it works

Six roles in every workspace

Owner, Admin, Member and Viewer form a ladder, each holding everything below. Beside it, Developer builds integrations without reading mail, and Billing runs the plan.

Write up to 24 of your own

Tick from one grouped list. Editing templates ticks reading them, and unticking the read takes the edit with it.

A role is a ceiling for keys

Issue a key against a role and it keeps only the scopes both hold, checked on every request. Narrow the role and the key follows without rotation.

What you get

In the product today

Owner stays fixed

Holds every permission, later ones too, and cannot be edited, deleted or given.

Rename the rest

Call them Ops and On-call if that is how your team talks.

Deleting asks first

Delete a role people or keys still hold and it asks where they move.

Assistants obey it

A viewer's MCP client is built without a sending tool.

Good practice

Getting the most out of it

  1. 01

    Share the address too

    A role gives nobody an address. Share each one as Can send or Read only.

  2. 02

    Cap every key

    Issue each API key against the role whose job it does.

  3. 03

    Describe the job

    Whoever hands the role out next decides from its description, so say what it is for.

Where it stands

Good to know

Handing over a workspace
Ownership cannot be transferred. Owner is always the account the workspace belongs to.

Questions

Asked often

Keep going

Works well with

Share an address

Hand billing@ to the person who does the billing.

REST API

A documented HTTP API with issuable, scopable, revocable keys.

MCP server

Point Claude, or any MCP client, at your mailbox.

Start

Your domain,
your mail.

Point a domain at OpenEmail and read it in a mailbox built around it. The free plan covers one domain.

Your inbox,
on your own terms.

Email infrastructure for businesses, AI, agents and personal email. Built for scale, privacy and control. Everything email should have had from day one.

OpenEmail

Email infrastructure for businesses, AI, agents and personal email. Built for scale, privacy and control. Everything email should have had from day one.

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