Google Drive MCP Server

A read-only Model Context Protocol server that gives LLM-powered tools (Claude Code CLI, Cursor, Claude Desktop, etc.) access to your Google Drive.

Search, list, and read files — including automatic export of Google Docs (as Markdown), Sheets (as CSV), and Slides (as plain text). Works with both personal drives and shared drives.

Quick start

1. Install

git clone https://github.com/wagnerlabs/gdrive-mcp.git
cd gdrive-mcp
npm install
npm run build

2. Set up Google Cloud credentials

1. Go to Google Cloud Console
2. Create a project (e.g. gdrive-mcp) or select an existing one
3. Enable the Google Drive API
   • Navigate to APIs & Services > Library
   • Search for "Google Drive API" and click Enable
4. Configure the OAuth consent screen
   • Navigate to APIs & Services > OAuth consent screen and click Get started
   • Enter an app name (e.g. gdrive-mcp), select your email as the support email, and click Next
   • Audience: select Internal (Workspace users) or External (personal Gmail), then click Next
   • Contact Information: enter your email and click Next
   • Finish: check the policy agreement box and click Create
5. Add the Drive scope
   • In the left sidebar, go to Data Access
   • Click Add or remove scopes
   • Add: https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.readonly
   • Save
6. Create OAuth credentials
   • In the left sidebar, go to Clients and click Create Client
   • Application type: Desktop app
   • Name: gdrive-mcp (this is just a console label to help you identify this client later)
   • Click Create
   • Download the JSON file and save it to the credentials/ folder at the root of this repo:

     gdrive-mcp/credentials/gcp-oauth.keys.json
     

3. Authenticate

node dist/index.js auth

A browser window will open for Google sign-in. After approval the token is saved to credentials/.gdrive-server-credentials.json.

4. Add to your MCP client

Claude Code CLI

claude mcp add --scope user wagnerlabs-gdrive -- node /absolute/path/to/gdrive-mcp/dist/index.js

The --scope user flag installs the server globally, so the MCP server will be available in Claude Code as wagnerlabs-gdrive from any directory you run Claude Code in.

To remove:

claude mcp remove wagnerlabs-gdrive

Cursor

Add to .cursor/mcp.json in any project (or globally):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gdrive": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/gdrive-mcp/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gdrive": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/gdrive-mcp/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Tools

All tools are read-only.

Tool	Description
gdrive_search	Search files using full-text search or Drive query syntax
gdrive_get_file	Get detailed metadata for a file by ID
gdrive_read_file	Read file content (Docs → Markdown, Sheets → CSV, Slides → plain text)
gdrive_list_files	List files in a folder with sorting and pagination

File format handling

When reading files, Google Workspace documents are automatically exported:

Source format	Exported as
Google Docs	Markdown
Google Sheets	CSV (first sheet)
Google Slides	Plain text
Google Drawings	PNG (metadata only)
Text files (.txt, .json, .js, etc.)	Read directly as UTF-8
Binary files (images, PDFs, etc.)	Returns metadata with browser link

Configuration

Credential paths can be customized via environment variables:

Variable	Default	Description
GDRIVE_OAUTH_PATH	credentials/gcp-oauth.keys.json	Path to OAuth client secret
GDRIVE_CREDENTIALS_PATH	credentials/.gdrive-server-credentials.json	Path to saved token

Updating

After pulling new changes, rebuild and the MCP server will pick up the update on next launch — no need to re-register it:

cd /path/to/gdrive-mcp
git pull
npm install
npm run build

Development

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Run in dev mode (uses tsx, no build step)
npm run dev

# Build
npm run build

# Run tests
npm test

# Run tests in watch mode
npm run test:watch

License

MIT