The ElevenLabs MCP Server enables powerful audio and AI capabilities for MCP clients like Claude Desktop, Cursor, and Windsurf:
Text-to-Speech: Convert text to speech with customizable voices, stability, speed, and style
Speech-to-Text: Transcribe audio with optional speaker diarization
Voice Capabilities: Clone voices from audio files, transform speech between voices, and design/preview new voices
Audio Processing: Generate sound effects from text, isolate audio, and play WAV/MP3 files
Voice Library Management: Search, preview, and manage voices in personal and shared libraries
Conversational AI: Create and manage agents with specific voices and knowledge bases
Communication: Make outbound calls via Twilio and manage associated phone numbers
Account Management: Monitor API usage and subscription status
Enables Windsurf, a Codeium product, to leverage ElevenLabs' audio processing and text-to-speech capabilities.
Enables interaction with ElevenLabs Text to Speech and audio processing APIs, allowing for speech generation, voice cloning, audio transcription, voice design, and audio isolation capabilities.
Allows OpenAI Agents to use ElevenLabs' text-to-speech and audio processing features to generate and manipulate audio content.
Quickstart with Claude Desktop
Get your API key from ElevenLabs. There is a free tier with 10k credits per month.
Install
uv(Python package manager), install withcurl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | shor see theuvrepo for additional install methods.Go to Claude > Settings > Developer > Edit Config > claude_desktop_config.json to include the following:
If you're using Windows, you will have to enable "Developer Mode" in Claude Desktop to use the MCP server. Click "Help" in the hamburger menu at the top left and select "Enable Developer Mode".
Related MCP server: ElevenLabs MCP Server
Other MCP clients
For other clients like Cursor and Windsurf, run:
pip install elevenlabs-mcppython -m elevenlabs_mcp --api-key={{PUT_YOUR_API_KEY_HERE}} --printto get the configuration. Paste it into appropriate configuration directory specified by your MCP client.
That's it. Your MCP client can now interact with ElevenLabs through these tools:
Example usage
⚠️ Warning: ElevenLabs credits are needed to use these tools.
Try asking Claude:
"Create an AI agent that speaks like a film noir detective and can answer questions about classic movies"
"Generate three voice variations for a wise, ancient dragon character, then I will choose my favorite voice to add to my voice library"
"Convert this recording of my voice to sound like a medieval knight"
"Create a soundscape of a thunderstorm in a dense jungle with animals reacting to the weather"
"Turn this speech into text, identify different speakers, then convert it back using unique voices for each person"
Optional features
File Output Configuration
You can configure how the MCP server handles file outputs using these environment variables in your claude_desktop_config.json:
ELEVENLABS_MCP_BASE_PATH: Specify the base path for file operations with relative paths (default:~/Desktop)ELEVENLABS_MCP_OUTPUT_MODE: Control how generated files are returned (default:files)
Output Modes
The ELEVENLABS_MCP_OUTPUT_MODE environment variable supports three modes:
files(default): Save files to disk and return file paths"env": { "ELEVENLABS_API_KEY": "your-api-key", "ELEVENLABS_MCP_OUTPUT_MODE": "files" }resources: Return files as MCP resources; binary data is base64-encoded, text is returned as UTF-8 text"env": { "ELEVENLABS_API_KEY": "your-api-key", "ELEVENLABS_MCP_OUTPUT_MODE": "resources" }both: Save files to disk AND return as MCP resources"env": { "ELEVENLABS_API_KEY": "your-api-key", "ELEVENLABS_MCP_OUTPUT_MODE": "both" }
Resource Mode Benefits:
Files are returned directly in the MCP response as base64-encoded data
No disk I/O required - useful for containerized or serverless environments
MCP clients can access file content immediately without file system access
In
bothmode, resources can be fetched later using theelevenlabs://filenameURI pattern
Use Cases:
files: Traditional file-based workflows, local developmentresources: Cloud environments, MCP clients without file system accessboth: Maximum flexibility, caching, and resource sharing scenarios
Data residency keys
You can specify the data residency region with the ELEVENLABS_API_RESIDENCY environment variable. Defaults to "us".
Note: Data residency is an enterprise only feature. See the docs for more details.
Contributing
If you want to contribute or run from source:
Clone the repository:
Create a virtual environment and install dependencies using uv:
Copy
.env.exampleto.envand add your ElevenLabs API key:
Run the tests to make sure everything is working:
Install the server in Claude Desktop:
mcp install elevenlabs_mcp/server.pyDebug and test locally with MCP Inspector:
mcp dev elevenlabs_mcp/server.py
Troubleshooting
Logs when running with Claude Desktop can be found at:
Windows:
%APPDATA%\Claude\logs\mcp-server-elevenlabs.logmacOS:
~/Library/Logs/Claude/mcp-server-elevenlabs.log
Timeouts when using certain tools
Certain ElevenLabs API operations, like voice design and audio isolation, can take a long time to resolve. When using the MCP inspector in dev mode, you might get timeout errors despite the tool completing its intended task.
This shouldn't occur when using a client like Claude.
MCP ElevenLabs: spawn uvx ENOENT
If you encounter the error "MCP ElevenLabs: spawn uvx ENOENT", confirm its absolute path by running this command in your terminal:
Once you obtain the absolute path (e.g., /usr/local/bin/uvx), update your configuration to use that path (e.g., "command": "/usr/local/bin/uvx"). This ensures that the correct executable is referenced.