This MCP server allows you to connect Claude Desktop or other MCP clients to your Google Docs and Drive, creating a powerful bridge for AI assistants to interact with your documents programmatically. It provides comprehensive tools for reading, writing, formatting documents, and managing your entire Google Drive.
Before getting started, ensure you have:
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/documents
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file
credentials.json
⚠️ SECURITY WARNING: Treat the credentials.json
file like a password. Do not share it publicly or commit it to GitHub.
git clone https://github.com/a-bonus/google-docs-mcp.git mcp-googledocs-server
cd mcp-googledocs-server
Place your renamed credentials.json
file directly in the mcp-googledocs-server
folder.
npm install
npm run build
Run the compiled server:
node ./dist/server.js
A URL will appear in the terminal. Copy it and paste into your browser.
Log in with the same Google account you added as a test user and grant the requested permissions.
After clicking "Allow," you'll be redirected to a page that can't be reached. Copy the code from the URL (between code=
and &scope
).
Paste the code back in the terminal and press Enter.
You should see "Authentication successful!" and "Token stored to .../token.json"
⚠️ SECURITY WARNING: The token.json
file contains access credentials. Protect it like a password and do not commit it to GitHub.
Find the absolute path to your server directory using pwd
(macOS/Linux) or cd
(Windows).
Locate or create Claude's configuration file:
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/mcp_config.json
%APPDATA%\Claude\mcp_config.json
~/.config/Claude/mcp_config.json
Edit mcp_config.json
to include:
{
"mcpServers": {
"google-docs-mcp": {
"command": "node",
"args": [
"/PATH/TO/YOUR/CLONED/REPO/mcp-googledocs-server/dist/server.js"
],
"env": {}
}
}
}
Replace /PATH/TO/YOUR/CLONED/REPO
with your actual path.
Save the file and restart Claude Desktop.
Once configured, you can use commands like:
google-docs-mcp
server to read the document with ID YOUR_GOOGLE_DOC_ID
."YOUR_GOOGLE_DOC_ID
?"YOUR_GOOGLE_DOC_ID
."Text Styling: "Use applyTextStyle
to make the text 'Important Section' bold and red (#FF0000) in document YOUR_GOOGLE_DOC_ID
."
Paragraph Styling: "Use applyParagraphStyle
to center-align the paragraph containing 'Title Here' in document YOUR_GOOGLE_DOC_ID
."
Table Creation: "Insert a 3x4 table at index 500 in document YOUR_GOOGLE_DOC_ID
."
Comment Management: "Use listComments
to show all comments in document YOUR_GOOGLE_DOC_ID
."
Drive Management: "Use listGoogleDocs
to show my recent documents."
Always replace YOUR_GOOGLE_DOC_ID
with the actual ID from a Google Doc's URL (the long string between /d/
and /edit
).
Claude shows "Failed" or "Could not attach":
mcp_config.json
is correct and absolutenpm run build
successfullynode /PATH/TO/YOUR/CLONED/REPO/mcp-googledocs-server/dist/server.js
Google Authorization Errors:
credentials.json
is correctly placed in the project rootTo add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:
claude mcp add-json "google-docs-mcp" '{"command":"node","args":["/PATH/TO/YOUR/CLONED/REPO/mcp-googledocs-server/dist/server.js"],"env":[]}'
See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.
There are two ways to add an MCP server to Cursor. The most common way is to add the server globally in the ~/.cursor/mcp.json
file so that it is available in all of your projects.
If you only need the server in a single project, you can add it to the project instead by creating or adding it to the .cursor/mcp.json
file.
To add a global MCP server go to Cursor Settings > Tools & Integrations and click "New MCP Server".
When you click that button the ~/.cursor/mcp.json
file will be opened and you can add your server like this:
{
"mcpServers": {
"google-docs-mcp": {
"command": "node",
"args": [
"/PATH/TO/YOUR/CLONED/REPO/mcp-googledocs-server/dist/server.js"
],
"env": []
}
}
}
To add an MCP server to a project you can create a new .cursor/mcp.json
file or add it to the existing one. This will look exactly the same as the global MCP server example above.
Once the server is installed, you might need to head back to Settings > MCP and click the refresh button.
The Cursor agent will then be able to see the available tools the added MCP server has available and will call them when it needs to.
You can also explicitly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.
To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:
1. Find your configuration file:
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
2. Add this to your configuration file:
{
"mcpServers": {
"google-docs-mcp": {
"command": "node",
"args": [
"/PATH/TO/YOUR/CLONED/REPO/mcp-googledocs-server/dist/server.js"
],
"env": []
}
}
}
3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect