apple-notes-mcp

MCP.Pizza Chef: sirmews

Three read-only tools list every note's title, search across the lot, and open one in full. It runs on a Mac only, reading the Notes file already on your own disk, so nothing is uploaded and no key or account is involved. It cannot create, edit or delete anything, despite one line of the documentation claiming otherwise. Password-protected notes and attachments are skipped entirely. The author archived the project in December 2024 and named no replacement.

Archived · The author made this repository read-only on GitHub.
Notes

Use This MCP server To

Find the note where I wrote down that address Search my notes for everything about one project Read a note in full without hunting through the app List my notes so I can see what is there Summarize the scrappy notes I took in a meeting

README

Apple Notes Model Context Protocol Server for Claude Desktop.

Read your local Apple Notes database and provide it to Claude Desktop.

Now Claude can search your most forgotten notes and know even more about you.

Noting could go wrong.

Components

Resources

The server implements the ability to read and write to your Apple Notes.

Tools

The server provides multiple prompts:

  • get-all-notes: Get all notes.
  • read-note: Get full content of a specific note.
  • search-notes: Search through notes.

Missing Features:

  • No handling of encrypted notes (ZISPASSWORDPROTECTED)
  • No support for pinned notes filtering
  • No handling of cloud sync status
  • Missing attachment content retrieval
  • No support for checklist status (ZHASCHECKLIST)
  • No ability to create or edit notes

Quickstart

Install the server

Recommend using uv to install the server locally for Claude.

uvx apple-notes-mcp

OR

uv pip install apple-notes-mcp

Add your config as described below.

Claude Desktop

On MacOS: ~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json On Windows: %APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Note: You might need to use the direct path to uv. Use which uv to find the path.

Development/Unpublished Servers Configuration

"mcpServers": {
  "apple-notes-mcp": {
    "command": "uv",
    "args": [
      "--directory",
      "{project_dir}",
      "run",
      "apple-notes-mcp"
    ]
  }
}

Published Servers Configuration

"mcpServers": {
  "apple-notes-mcp": {
    "command": "uvx",
    "args": [
      "apple-notes-mcp"
    ]
  }
}

Mac OS Disk Permissions

You'll need to grant Full Disk Access to the server. This is because the Apple Notes sqlite database is nested deep in the MacOS file system.

I may look at an AppleScript solution in the future if this annoys me further or if I want to start adding/appending to Apple Notes.

Development

Building and Publishing

To prepare the package for distribution:

  1. Sync dependencies and update lockfile:
uv sync
  1. Build package distributions:
uv build

This will create source and wheel distributions in the dist/ directory.

  1. Publish to PyPI:
uv publish

Note: You'll need to set PyPI credentials via environment variables or command flags:

  • Token: --token or UV_PUBLISH_TOKEN
  • Or username/password: --username/UV_PUBLISH_USERNAME and --password/UV_PUBLISH_PASSWORD

Debugging

Since MCP servers run over stdio, debugging can be challenging. For the best debugging experience, we strongly recommend using the MCP Inspector.

You can launch the MCP Inspector via npm with this command:

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uv --directory {project_dir} run apple-notes-mcp

Upon launching, the Inspector will display a URL that you can access in your browser to begin debugging.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.

Source Code

The source code is available on GitHub.

Contributing

Send your ideas and feedback to me on Bluesky or by opening an issue.

apple-notes-mcp FAQ

Is this still being maintained?
No. The author archived the project in December 2024, so it is frozen and will not get fixes. No replacement is suggested.
Do I need a paid key or an account?
No. It reads the Notes file already sitting on your Mac. What it does need is Full Disk Access, a macOS permission you grant by hand in System Settings.
Is Full Disk Access a big thing to grant?
It is worth understanding before you do it. That permission lets the program read any file on your Mac, not only your notes. Only turn it on if you are comfortable with that.
Can it write or change my notes?
No. One line of the documentation says it can read and write, but the code only reads. Creating, editing and deleting are all absent.
Can I use this to find an old note when I cannot remember its title?
Yes, and that is what it is best at. Search on any word you do remember and it lists the matching notes so you can open one.
Does it work on Windows?
No. It reads a Mac-only file, so it needs macOS and the Notes app.
What happens with locked or password-protected notes?
They are not handled. Attachments, checklist ticks and pinned status are all left out too.
Which apps does it work in?
It was built for Claude Desktop and should work in other MCP-compatible assistants on a Mac.
How hard is setup?
Moderate. Paste a short snippet into your settings file, then grant Full Disk Access in System Settings.