What can an AI agent do with
Read, change, and delete your email (Mail.ReadWrite, delegated)?
It can read, create, change, and delete email in your mailbox. It cannot send email with this permission alone.
How to spot it
On a Microsoft 365 (Microsoft Graph) connection or settings screen, this is Mail.ReadWrite.
With it, an agent can
- Read every email in your mailbox
- Create draft emails
- Move emails between folders or mark them read
- Delete emails
It cannot, on its own
- Send email (that needs Mail.Send)
- Open shared mailboxes (that is a separate permission, Mail.ReadWrite.Shared)
What a bad day looks like
An agent that misreads an instruction could delete important customer emails or move them into a folder you never check.
Set it up safer
- If it only needs to read, ask for Mail.Read instead.
- If it only needs senders and subjects, ask for Mail.ReadBasic.
- Ask the seller to have the agent move email into a review folder instead of deleting it.
Narrower permissions on Microsoft 365 (Microsoft Graph):
- Read your email (Mail.Read, delegated)
Mail.Read
Ask the company selling the agent
- When would the agent ever delete an email, and can I turn that off?
- Does the agent keep a log of every email it moved, changed, or deleted?
- Can I undo what the agent changes in my mailbox?
Source
Checked against Microsoft 365 (Microsoft Graph) documentation on 2026-09-28. All Microsoft 365 (Microsoft Graph) permissions →
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This page explains what a permission allows. It does not describe, test or rate any product. Permission details are summarized in our own words from the provider's documentation, linked on the page; providers change their documentation, so check the source before you rely on a detail.