MacOS Clipboard MCP server

The MacOS Clipboard MCP Server provides access to your macOS clipboard content from AI assistants, enabling them to view text, images, and binary data directly from your clipboard through the Model Context Protocol.

Installation

Before installing the MacOS Clipboard MCP Server, ensure you have the Bun runtime installed on your macOS system.

To install the server and its dependencies, run:

bun install

Running the Server

Standard Mode

To start the server in standard mode:

bun run start

Development Modes

For development with hot reloading:

bun run dev

Alternative development options:

bun run dev2      # Run with fastmcp dev
bun run inspect   # Run with fastmcp inspector
bun run mcp-cli   # Run with mcp-cli tool

How It Works

The server uses AppleScript via the osascript command to access your macOS clipboard content. When an AI assistant makes a request, the server:

1. Checks your clipboard in real-time (no caching)
2. Identifies the content type (text, image, or binary)
3. Returns the content with appropriate MIME types

This allows AI assistants to see exactly what's on your clipboard at the moment of request, making it easier to work with content you've copied.

Supported Content Types

The MCP server can retrieve the following types of content from your clipboard:

• Text: Plain text content
• Images: PNG format
• Binary data: Raw binary content

Each content type is properly formatted and returned with the correct MIME type to ensure compatibility with AI assistants.

How to install this MCP server

For Claude Code

To add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add-json "clipboard-mcp" '{"command":"bun","args":["run","start"]}'

See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.

For Cursor

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.

Adding an MCP server to Cursor globally

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": {
        "clipboard-mcp": {
            "command": "bun",
            "args": [
                "run",
                "start"
            ]
        }
    }
}

Adding an MCP server to a project

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.

How to use the MCP server

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.

For Claude Desktop

To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:

1. Find your configuration file:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
• Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add this to your configuration file:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "clipboard-mcp": {
            "command": "bun",
            "args": [
                "run",
                "start"
            ]
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect