Connect Anthropic (Claude) to atbridge.ai

Once Anthropic is connected, the @bridge AI Chat inside Thunderbird uses Claude to read, search, draft, and organise your email — across every account, on your machine.

Note

Install atbridge.ai and the Thunderbird add-on first — see Install atbridge.ai. New to the in-Thunderbird side? Start with Set up the @bridge extension.

Tip

This connects Claude as the model the @bridge AI Chat uses inside Thunderbird. That’s different from Claude Desktop — the standalone chat app — which connects to atbridge.ai the other way, over MCP. If you’d rather drive atbridge.ai from Claude Desktop, see Connect atbridge.ai to Claude Desktop.

1. Get your Anthropic API key

1. Open the Claude developer platform → API keys (sign in if prompted).

2. Click Create Key, give it a name (e.g. “atbridge.ai”), and copy it. It starts with sk-ant-.

3. Copy the key now and keep it somewhere safe — you’ll paste it into atbridge.ai next.

Caution

Anthropic bills your own account per use. atbridge.ai puts no markup on what Anthropic charges. Prefer not to pay per use? Run a model free and locally with Ollama.

2. Add it to atbridge.ai

1. In Thunderbird, open the @bridge Settings — the gear, or Tools → Add-ons and Themes → atbridge.ai → Options (see Set up the @bridge extension). Go to the AI providers tab.

2. Pick Anthropic Claude from the Provider dropdown.

3. Paste your sk-ant-… key into API key. It’s encrypted on this device — your key never reaches atbridge.ai’s servers.

4. Click Connect. The status turns to a green ✓.

3. Pick a model and chat

Open the @bridge AI Chat (the @b button in Thunderbird), pick a Claude model from the model dropdown — Claude Sonnet is a strong, fast default; Claude Opus is the most capable; Claude Haiku is cheapest. Pick the latest from the dropdown — @bridge can fetch the current list — and ask away:

“Summarise the unread thread from Maya and draft a reply.”

Tip

You can connect more than one provider and switch in the chat any time — your keys all stay local. Prefer to keep everything on your machine? See Connect a local model (Ollama).

Related

• Connect your AI — overview
• Use the @bridge AI Chat
• Connect OpenAI
• Connect atbridge.ai to Claude Desktop