google-drive-mcp

google-drive-mcp

MCP server for Google Drive - list, search, upload, download, and manage files and folders.

Use Cases

Answer from files: "What was our revenue target in the Q2 board deck?" → searches Drive, reads the relevant doc, and answers your question.

Project scaffolding: Starting a new vendor onboarding → creates a folder structure with subfolders for contracts, compliance, deliverables, and meeting notes, plus template docs and sheets.

Feedback synthesis: "Summarize the feedback from my manager across my last 10 presentation decks" → reads comments from multiple files and identifies themes and development areas.

Localization workflow: "We're onboarding contractors in Japan - translate the onboarding folder from English to Japanese and flag anything that needs local adaptation (HR policies, holidays, etc.)" → reads multiple docs, translates, and highlights areas needing review.

(These are just examples - any workflow that needs file search, reading, or organization can use this. Use in combination with google-docs-mcp for reading/editing Google Docs, or google-sheets-mcp for Google Sheets.)

Setup

1. Create Google OAuth credentials

• Go to Google Cloud Console
• Create a new project (or use existing)
• Enable the Google Drive API
• Go to APIs & Services → OAuth consent screen, set up consent screen
• Go to APIs & Services → Credentials → Create Credentials → OAuth client ID
• Choose Web application
• Add http://localhost:3000/callback to Authorized redirect URIs
• Note your Client ID and Client Secret

2. Run the server

GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID='your-client-id' \
GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET='your-client-secret' \
MCP_TRANSPORT=http \
npm start

The server runs on http://localhost:3000 by default. Change with PORT=3001.

3. Add to your MCP client

claude mcp add --transport http google-drive-mcp http://localhost:3000/mcp

Architecture

This server acts as an OAuth proxy to Google:

graph LR
    A[MCP client] <--> B[google-drive-mcp] <--> C[Google OAuth/API]

• Server advertises itself as an OAuth authorization server via /.well-known/oauth-authorization-server
• /register returns the Google OAuth client credentials
• /authorize redirects to Google, encoding the client's callback URL in state
• /callback receives the code from Google and forwards to the client's callback
• /token proxies token requests to Google, injecting client credentials
• /mcp handles MCP requests, using the bearer token to call Drive API

The server holds no tokens or state - it just proxies OAuth to Google.

Tools

Tool	Description
Files
files_list	List/search files using Drive query syntax
file_get	Get file metadata
file_download	Download file content (supports export for Google Docs/Sheets)
file_upload	Upload a new file
file_update	Update file content or metadata
file_copy	Copy a file
file_move	Move a file to a different folder
file_trash	Move to trash
file_untrash	Restore from trash
file_delete	Permanently delete
Folders
folder_create	Create a new folder
Comments
comments_list	List comments on a file
comment_get	Get a comment and its replies
comment_create	Add a comment to a file
comment_reply	Reply to a comment
comment_resolve	Resolve or unresolve a comment
Replies
replies_list	List replies to a comment
reply_get	Get a specific reply
reply_update	Update a reply
reply_delete	Delete a reply
Permissions
permissions_list	List who has access to a file
permission_get	Get a specific permission
permission_create	Share a file with a user, group, domain, or anyone
permission_update	Change a user's access level
permission_delete	Revoke access to a file

Drive Query Syntax

The files_list tool supports Drive's query syntax for filtering:

# By name
name contains 'report'
name = 'Budget 2024'

# By type
mimeType = 'application/pdf'
mimeType = 'application/vnd.google-apps.folder'
mimeType = 'application/vnd.google-apps.document'

# By folder
'folder-id' in parents

# By ownership
'[e-mail]' in owners

# Combined
name contains 'report' and mimeType = 'application/pdf'

Google Drive API Scopes

• drive - Full access to Drive files

Contributing

Pull requests are welcomed on GitHub! To get started:

• Install Git and Node.js
• Clone the repository
• Install dependencies with npm install
• Run npm run test to run tests
• Build with npm run build

Releases

Versions follow the semantic versioning spec.

To release:

• Use npm version <major | minor | patch> to bump the version
• Run git push --follow-tags to push with tags
• Wait for GitHub Actions to publish to the NPM registry.