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

1. Go to Google Cloud Console
2. Create a new project (or use existing)
3. Enable the Google Drive API
4. Go to APIs & Services → OAuth consent screen, set up consent screen
5. Go to APIs & Services → Credentials → Create Credentials → OAuth client ID
6. Choose Web application
7. Add http://localhost:3000/callback to Authorized redirect URIs
8. 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]

1. Server advertises itself as an OAuth authorization server via /.well-known/oauth-authorization-server
2. /register returns the Google OAuth client credentials
3. /authorize redirects to Google, encoding the client's callback URL in state
4. /callback receives the code from Google and forwards to the client's callback
5. /token proxies token requests to Google, injecting client credentials
6. /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
'user@example.com' 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:

1. Install Git and Node.js
2. Clone the repository
3. Install dependencies with npm install
4. Run npm run test to run tests
5. Build with npm run build

Releases

Versions follow the semantic versioning spec.

To release:

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