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

Go to Google Cloud Console
Create a project (e.g. gdrive-mcp) or select an existing one
Enable the Google Drive API
- Navigate to APIs & Services > Library
- Search for "Google Drive API" and click Enable
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
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
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 as:
```
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 gdrive -- node /absolute/path/to/gdrive-mcp/dist/index.js

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

Google Drive MCP Server