diff --git a/internal/api/search_handlers.go b/internal/api/search_handlers.go
index ce238f6..d7ed687 100644
--- a/internal/api/search_handlers.go
+++ b/internal/api/search_handlers.go
@@ -311,6 +311,15 @@ func (s *Server) handleGetMail(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
 		}
 	}
 
+	// PROJ-44: OCR status + extracted character count for the GUI badge and
+	// the conditional "OCR-Text herunterladen" button. Errors are swallowed
+	// silently so a missing ocr_chars column on an old DB does not break the
+	// detail view; defaults are returned by GetOCRMeta in that case.
+	ocrStatus, ocrChars, _ := s.store.GetOCRMeta(r.Context(), id)
+	if ocrStatus == "" {
+		ocrStatus = "pending"
+	}
+
 	writeJSON(w, http.StatusOK, map[string]interface{}{
 		"id":          id,
 		"from":        pm.From,
@@ -326,6 +335,8 @@ func (s *Server) handleGetMail(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
 		"verify_ok":   verifyOK,
 		"verified_at": verifiedAt,
 		"thread_id":   threadID,
+		"ocr_status":  ocrStatus,
+		"ocr_chars":   ocrChars,
 	})
 }
 
diff --git a/internal/api/v1_handlers.go b/internal/api/v1_handlers.go
index 389bbe5..be7a0fb 100644
--- a/internal/api/v1_handlers.go
+++ b/internal/api/v1_handlers.go
@@ -244,6 +244,13 @@ func (s *Server) handleV1GetMail(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
 		dateStr = pm.Date.UTC().Format(time.RFC3339)
 	}
 
+	// PROJ-44: expose ocr_status to external API consumers as well so CRM
+	// integrations can decide whether to ask for ocr-text downloads.
+	ocrStatus, _, _ := s.store.GetOCRMeta(r.Context(), id)
+	if ocrStatus == "" {
+		ocrStatus = "pending"
+	}
+
 	writeJSON(w, http.StatusOK, map[string]interface{}{
 		"id":          id,
 		"from":        pm.From,
@@ -254,6 +261,7 @@ func (s *Server) handleV1GetMail(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
 		"size":        len(raw),
 		"body_plain":  pm.TextBody,
 		"attachments": attachments,
+		"ocr_status":  ocrStatus,
 	})
 }