SeeSee

See what your apps sent. Lightweight, self-hosted sent email log aggregator with search UI.

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SeeSee receives email log entries from your applications via REST API or SMTP, stores them with configurable retention in SQLite, and provides a clean web UI to search and inspect them. Think Dozzle (Docker log viewer) but for outbound email.

One instance, all your apps. Search across every application's sent emails in one view.

Quick Start

docker run -d \
  --name seesee \
  -p 8080:8080 \
  -p 2525:2525 \
  -v seesee-data:/data \
  -e SEESEE_ADMIN_PASSWORD=changeme \
  ghcr.io/brandonjp/seesee-email:latest

Open http://localhost:8080 and log in with admin / changeme.

Docker Compose

services:
  seesee:
    image: ghcr.io/brandonjp/seesee-email:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
      - "2525:2525"
    volumes:
      - seesee-data:/data
    environment:
      SEESEE_ADMIN_PASSWORD: "${SEESEE_ADMIN_PASSWORD:-changeme}"

volumes:
  seesee-data:

How It Works

1. Your apps send email through their normal provider (Resend, SendGrid, SES, SMTP, etc.)
2. After sending, they log the email to SeeSee via a simple HTTP POST or SMTP ingest
3. SeeSee stores the metadata and body in SQLite with full-text search
4. You search and inspect sent emails through the web UI

Your App → sends email via provider → logs to SeeSee → search & inspect in browser

Log an Email

curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/api/v1/log \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ss_your_api_key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "to": ["user@example.com"],
    "from": "app@example.com",
    "subject": "Welcome!",
    "body_text": "Thanks for signing up.",
    "status": "sent",
    "provider": "resend"
  }'

See examples/ for PHP/WordPress, Python, Node.js, and cURL integration snippets.

Management API keys

Management API keys (ss_mgmt_ Bearer credentials) authenticate automation and agents against the management REST API — minting/revoking app keys, listing apps, and other admin-scoped operations — separately from the per-app keys used for POST /api/v1/log. Bootstrap one headlessly from the CLI:

python -m seesee.keys create --label "my-agent" --scopes emails:read,apps:read --expires-days 90

To rotate a key with zero downtime: mint a new key, deploy it to the consumer, confirm it's working, then revoke the old key id.

A key with apps:write can mint app keys and therefore transitively read all email in the instance — scope keys per agent and prefer read-only keys for debugging.

MCP server

SeeSee also mounts a Model Context Protocol server at /mcp (streamable HTTP), authenticated by the same management keys, so agents can provision apps and debug email delivery directly:

claude mcp add --transport http seesee https://seesee.example.com/mcp --header "Authorization: Bearer ss_mgmt_..."

See the MCP Server guide for the full tool list and security notes.

Features

• REST API — POST /api/v1/log from any language
• SMTP Ingest — Point your app's SMTP at SeeSee on port 2525
• Full-Text Search — SQLite FTS5 across subject, body, addresses
• Multi-App — One instance serves all your applications
• Web UI — Dashboard, email list, detail view with HTML preview
• Configurable Retention — Max count, max age, storage cap per app
• Body Storage Modes — Full, text-only, or preview-only per app
• Dark/Light Mode — System preference with manual toggle
• Single Container — Docker, no external dependencies

Documentation

Full documentation at seesee.email — getting started, API reference, deployment guides, integrations, and more.

Auto-generated OpenAPI docs also available at /docs on your running instance.

Timezone Handling

• Storage: All dates stored in UTC. Do not change this.
• Admin display: Controlled by SEESEE_DISPLAY_TIMEZONE env var (default: UTC). IANA timezone string (e.g. America/Chicago). Used in admin views via seesee.timezone helpers and the display_dt Jinja2 filter.
• User display: Dates are displayed in the browser's local timezone via client-side JavaScript (Intl.DateTimeFormat). Tooltips show both local and UTC times.
• API responses: Always UTC ISO 8601.

Tech Stack

Python 3.12+ / FastAPI / SQLite FTS5 / Jinja2 + Tailwind CSS + Alpine.js / Docker

Development

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate        # bash / zsh
# source .venv/bin/activate.fish  # fish
pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest

See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup and guidelines.

License

MIT