Excel MCP Server
Click on "Deploy Server".
Wait a few minutes for the server to deploy. Once ready, it will show a "Started" state.
In the chat, type
@followed by the MCP server name and your instructions, e.g., "@Excel MCP ServerCreate sales.xlsx with a pivot table and bar chart from data.csv"
That's it! The server will respond to your query, and you can continue using it as needed.
Here is a step-by-step guide with screenshots.
Excel MCP · FastMCP 이식용 리팩토링
haris-musa/excel-mcp-server의 Excel 기능을 독립 fastmcp 패키지로 이식한 공개 파생본입니다.
설치·실행·기존 서버 통합은 한국어 이식 가이드를 먼저 보세요.
아래 원본 README의 uvx excel-mcp-server는 PyPI 원본을 실행합니다.
이 리팩토링본은 이 폴더에서 uv sync 후 uv run excel-mcp-server streamable-http로 실행하세요.
FastMCP 4.1.4, MCP SDK 2.3.0을 기준으로 검증합니다.
Excel 46개 + DOCX 12개 도구를 같은 포트·같은 도구 목록에 등록합니다. 선택적 VBA 쓰기는 2개입니다.
신규 Word 문서와 템플릿 구조 보존 편집: DOCX 사용 가이드.
create_server(settings): 독립 실행 또는mount()용 서버 팩터리.register_tools(mcp, settings): 기존 FastMCP 인스턴스에 직접 도구 등록.build_app(...): Streamable HTTP ASGI 앱. 기본 주소http://127.0.0.1:8017/mcp.원본 MIT 라이선스와 저작권 고지를 유지합니다. 배포판 버전 번호는 원본과 같으며 공식 릴리스가 아닙니다.
Excel MCP Server
An open-source Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that lets
Claude, Cursor, VS Code Copilot, Codex and other AI clients create, read and edit Excel files:
charts, PivotTables, formulas, tables and more. It is built on openpyxl, needs no Microsoft
Excel, and runs on Windows, macOS and Linux.
Install and try it at excelmcpserver.com, or see Quick start below.
Features
Charts and PivotTables
Create Excel charts with AI: column, bar, line, area, pie, doughnut, radar, scatter and bubble, with combos, secondary axes, trendlines and error bars
The Excel 2016 chart types: waterfall, histogram, Pareto, box and whisker, treemap, sunburst and funnel
Real PivotTables that Excel refreshes (grouping, calculated fields, "show values as", layouts, filters), plus slicers and timelines for PivotTables and tables
Sparklines (line, column, win/loss)
Formulas and dynamic arrays
Formulas are calculated without Excel by a built-in engine (about 260 functions, checked against more than 2,500 formulas recorded from real Excel), so
read_rangereturns values for files that were never opened in ExcelDynamic arrays (
FILTER,SORT,UNIQUE,SEQUENCE,LET) are stored as Excel stores them and spill into the cells next to themFind out why a number is wrong: trace precedents and dependents across sheets, names and tables, and evaluate a formula step by step as Excel's Evaluate Formula does
Goal Seek: change an input until a formula reaches the value you want
Data, tables and rules
Read and write cells, dates and hyperlinks; tables with totals rows and calculated columns
Conditional formatting (scales, data bars, icon sets, top/bottom, duplicates, text, dates), data validation (dropdowns, limits, input messages)
Sort, filter (with criteria), find and replace, remove duplicates, text to columns, fill series, paste special
Fonts, fills, borders, number formats, merged cells, frozen panes, grouping, print setup, sheet protection, images, notes and defined names. Inserting or deleting rows and columns updates every reference, as in Excel
Large files
Reads stream the workbook and return pages, so memory stays flat on sheets with hundreds of thousands of rows; every call is bounded by size and cell limits
Edits of a sheet of 1 MB of XML or more parse only the rows they touch, so inserting or deleting rows and columns, sorting, replacing, copying a sheet and creating a PivotTable take seconds on a 200,000-row sheet instead of minutes
Macros (opt-in)
Read the VBA code in
.xlsmfiles. Writing VBA is off unless you start the server with--allow-vba-write; the server never runs macros
Safe by design
Optional folder confinement, a formula safety check, read-only mode, localhost-only HTTP by default, and atomic saves that never leave a half-written file
Works with .xlsx, .xlsm (macros are preserved), .xltx and .xltm files. Existing
threaded comments, shapes, form controls and other content the tools cannot edit are kept as
they are.
Related MCP server: Excel MCP Server
Quick start
You need uv. Every client runs the
server with uvx excel-mcp-server stdio; replace /path/to/workbooks with the folder the
server may use. excelmcpserver.com has the same steps with copy
buttons and one-click install links for Cursor and VS Code.
Claude Desktop (Chat): download
excel-mcp-server.mcpb
from the latest release and open it. Claude asks which folder the server may use.
Claude Code (the CLI, and the Code tab in Claude Desktop):
claude mcp add excel --scope user -- uvx excel-mcp-server stdio --allow-dir /path/to/workbooksCursor (~/.cursor/mcp.json), and most clients that use an mcpServers config:
{
"mcpServers": {
"excel": {
"command": "uvx",
"args": ["excel-mcp-server", "stdio", "--allow-dir", "/path/to/workbooks"]
}
}
}VS Code with GitHub Copilot (.vscode/mcp.json, note the servers key):
{
"servers": {
"excel": {
"type": "stdio",
"command": "uvx",
"args": ["excel-mcp-server", "stdio", "--allow-dir", "${workspaceFolder}"]
}
}
}OpenAI Codex (CLI, IDE extension and app):
codex mcp add excel -- uvx excel-mcp-server stdio --allow-dir /path/to/workbooksGemini CLI:
gemini mcp add -s user excel uvx excel-mcp-server stdio --allow-dir /path/to/workbooksDevin Desktop:
devin mcp add -s user excel -- uvx excel-mcp-server stdio --allow-dir /path/to/workbooksClaude Desktop, manual setup: open Settings, Developer, Edit Config, add the mcpServers
JSON above to claude_desktop_config.json, and restart Claude.
Desktop apps often cannot find uvx, because they do not see your shell's PATH (common
on macOS). Use its full path instead, which which uvx prints.
Choosing which files it can use
With --allow-dir DIR, the server only opens workbooks inside DIR (subfolders included)
and relative paths such as reports/q1.xlsx start there. Repeat the flag to allow several
folders, or set EXCEL_FILES_PATH (separate folders with : on macOS/Linux and ; on
Windows).
Without --allow-dir, any absolute path to an Excel file works. In every mode the server
only touches Excel files and never silently overwrites an existing workbook.
Remote use (Streamable HTTP)
uvx excel-mcp-server streamable-http --allow-dir /srv/workbooksClients connect to http://127.0.0.1:8017/mcp. Workbooks live in the --allow-dir folder
(default ./excel_files), and export_workbook / import_workbook move files between the
server and the client.
The server listens on localhost only. To accept other machines, set a token and a host:
EXCEL_MCP_AUTH_TOKEN=change-me uvx excel-mcp-server streamable-http --host 0.0.0.0Clients then send Authorization: Bearer change-me. Put a TLS-terminating reverse proxy in
front of it for use across networks.
Docker
docker build -t excel-mcp-server .
docker run -p 8017:8017 -v "$PWD/workbooks:/data" -e EXCEL_MCP_AUTH_TOKEN=change-me excel-mcp-serverConfiguration
Flag | Environment variable | Default | Meaning |
|
| none (stdio), | Folders workbooks must be in |
|
| off | Only offer tools that do not change files |
|
| off | Add tools that write VBA macros (see warning below); ignored with |
|
| all | Only offer the core tools and these comma-separated areas, to save context (see Choosing tools) |
|
|
| Largest workbook the server opens. Also sets the unpacked-size limit (10 times this) that every opened or uploaded workbook must stay under; parts compressed over 500:1 are refused |
|
|
| Most cells one call may read, write or format; reads are still returned in pages |
|
|
| Largest PivotTable source in cells (a 230,000-row, 13-column sheet); creating one from the biggest sources takes a minute and about 2 GB of memory |
|
|
| Most cells and rows of a workbook that may be loaded into memory at once, about 0.5 KB each (a 3,000,000 limit is about 1.5 GB). A workbook with more is refused by the tools that must load whole sheets; |
|
| Logging on stderr | |
|
|
| HTTP listen address |
|
|
| HTTP port |
| none | Bearer token required on HTTP requests | |
| off | Allow a non-local |
Tools
Area | Tools |
Workbooks |
|
CSV |
|
Sheets |
|
Cells |
|
Formulas |
|
Formatting |
|
Objects |
|
Names and notes |
|
Word documents |
|
Macros |
|
Choosing tools
Every tool costs context in every request. --tools offers only the core tools
(describe_workbook, describe_sheet, read_range) and the areas you list, for example
uvx excel-mcp-server stdio --tools data,charts. It combines with --read-only (read-only tools
of the areas) and --allow-vba-write (which also needs the vba area). An unknown area stops the
server at startup and lists the valid ones. The sizes are characters of tool descriptions and
schemas, at about 3.5 characters per token:
Area | Tools | Characters |
core (always) |
| 8,900 |
|
| 2,600 |
|
| 2,200 |
|
| 2,000 |
|
| 6,700 |
|
| 1,300 |
|
| 14,000 |
|
| 1,900 |
|
| 9,900 |
|
| 4,600 |
|
| 2,500 |
|
| 900 |
|
| 500 |
|
| 800 |
| DOCX creation, inspection, text editing, templates and transfer; see guide | 8,900 |
|
| 1,900 |
CSV
import_csv reads a .csv or .tsv file into a sheet (created if missing) at a cell, and
export_csv writes a range as CSV. Both stay in the allowed folders, within --max-cells and
--max-file-mb, and never run anything.
Import detects the delimiter from the first record (or takes
comma,semicolon,tab,pipe) and reads UTF-8 with or without a BOM, UTF-16 andcp1252. Quoted fields and line breaks inside them are kept.Fields are typed as in Excel's import: numbers (also
1,234.50,12%;decimalfor a decimal comma),TRUE/FALSEand ISO dates (2026-01-31,2026-01-31 09:30) become values. Text Excel would alter stays text: leading zeros (007), more than 15 digits, a leading+, and numeric dates such as01/02/2026, which are read only in thedate_orderyou name (dmyormdy).as_textkeeps every field as text.Fields are never formulas. Text starting with
=,+,-or@is stored as text with Excel's quote prefix, so editing the cell does not run it; a number such as-5is a number.Export writes raw values (full precision, ISO dates) or, with
formatted, what Excel shows. Text cells starting with=,+,-or@get a'prefix (escape_formulas, on by default) so a spreadsheet that opens the file does not run them; numbers are never prefixed. Datetimes are written as2026-01-31T09:30:00, which Excel opens as text; useformattedfor Excel. Useencoding: utf-8-sigfor a BOM, which Excel needs to show accents when it opens a UTF-8 file by double-click. Lines end with CRLF.
Every parameter is documented in TOOLS.md. Parameters mean the same in every tool:
Parameter | Meaning |
| The workbook and the worksheet |
| A block of cells ( |
| Where data comes from, optionally on another sheet ( |
| The name of a table, chart, image, PivotTable, slicer or defined name |
| Units of sizes: |
Tools that change a workbook return what they changed (sheet, range, name) so that the
next call can refer to it. Charts and images are selected by name, as listed by describe_sheet.
Writing macros (opt-in)
With --allow-vba-write (or EXCEL_MCP_ALLOW_VBA_WRITE=1) the server can set the code of
standard, class, workbook and sheet modules in .xlsm and .xltm files, delete standard and
class modules, and create new .xlsm/.xltm workbooks. The server only stores the code; it
never runs it, and Excel asks before enabling macros. Digitally signed VBA projects are
refused, since any change would invalidate the signature.
Warning: macro code runs with your user's rights once you enable macros in Excel. A model that reads untrusted content could be tricked into writing harmful code. Enable this option only for trusted workflows, keep
--allow-dirnarrow, and read the code before you enable macros. The tools are never offered in--read-onlymode.
Security
Formulas are parsed before they are written. Functions that reach the network or other programs (
WEBSERVICE,IMAGE,RTD,CALL, Google SheetsIMPORTXMLand others), Excel 4.0 macro functions (FILES,GET.WORKBOOK,RUNand others), DDE links and references to other workbooks are rejected.HYPERLINKis accepted with a fixedhttp(s)://,mailto:or#Sheet!A1link only.Paths are resolved, including symlinks, before they are checked against the allowed folders. Network (UNC) and Windows device paths are always rejected.
A single call processes at most 100,000 cells (
--max-cells), and large reads are returned in pages.Cell contents are data from files. The server tells the model not to follow instructions found in them, but review what an assistant does with workbooks from untrusted sources.
Please report vulnerabilities privately; see SECURITY.md.
Limitations
Formulas are stored in the file, and Excel calculates them when it opens it. So that
read_rangeis useful before that,valuesmode calculates formulas that have no saved result with a built-in calculator (about 260 functions: math, statistics, financial and bond, dates, text, lookup, logical, LET, sorting and filtering). Results Excel saved are always preferred. A formula the calculator cannot reproduce exactly as Excel does (an unsupported function, a circular reference, or an Excel quirk it does not replicate) is returned as null and listed inuncalculatedwith the reason; it is never guessed. Ranges in a formula are reduced to the formula's own row or column where Excel's ordinary (not array-entered) formulas do the same, and volatile functions such asRANDare not calculated. The calculator is checked against more than 2,500 formulas recorded from real Excel (tests/fixtures/formula_golden.json).trace_formulaandgoal_seekuse that calculator, sogoal_seekrefuses a formula it cannot calculate. Where Excel's Trace Precedents shows the cells anOFFSETstarts from,trace_formulashows the cellsINDIRECTandOFFSETpoint at; when those cannot be worked out the formula is listed inunknown. Where Excel's search stops at the "may not have found a solution" message,goal_seekmay still find a root, and it stores the answer only when it converges (within 0.001 of the target, as Excel does).Functions Excel added after 2007 (
IFS,XLOOKUP,STDEV.S,SORT, ...) are written with the_xlfn.prefix Excel expects, wherever formulas are stored (cells, copied and sorted cells, conditional formats, data validation, defined names).Legacy
.xlsfiles are not supported; useimport_csvfor CSV files.PivotTables are created from a snapshot and can use text, number and date columns of up to 3,000,000 cells (
--max-pivot-cells); Excel refreshes them from the live source data. They support number formats, "show values as" (percent of total, row, column or parent, difference from, running total, rank), sorting by label or value, date and number grouping, calculated fields, compact, outline and tabular layouts, subtotals on or off, filters with chosen items and several value fields as columns or rows. The figures written into the cells are the ones Excel shows after a refresh, checked against about 200 PivotTables recorded from real Excel (tests/fixtures/pivot_golden.json). The exceptions: items that tie when sorted by value may swap places on refresh, andvalues_in: "rows"cannot be combined with rank figures or, with subtotals, other figures along a field, because Excel mixes the value fields up there.add_sliceradds slicers (Insert > Slicer) for tables and PivotTables, and timelines for date fields of PivotTables: field, caption, position and size, columns, style, sort, selected items (or a period) and "hide items with no data". Selecting items filters as clicking does: table rows are filtered and hidden; PivotTable items are hidden and the figures recalculated from the source, which Excel confirms on refresh (about 200 PivotTables are checked against Excel, and the slicer variants against Excel's own results). One slicer can filter several PivotTables that share a cache, such as those of copied sheets. Limits: a PivotTable made or refreshed by Excel keeps its figures in the cells (the hidden items and a refresh-on-open mark are stored, so Excel recalculates when it opens the file); fields grouped in a PivotTable take no slicer.Inserting or deleting rows and columns, and renaming a sheet, update references like Excel. Hyperlink targets and 3D references (
Sheet1:Sheet3!A1) are left alone (Excel does the same). An edit that cuts through an array formula, a PivotTable, a table header or two tables at once is refused. Inserted cells take the formatting, row height and column width of the line above or to the left (nothing at the first row or column), and calculated table columns are filled into rows inserted in a table.Editing a workbook keeps what the tools cannot change: sparklines, extended conditional formats and validation, slicers and timelines, newer charts (waterfall, histogram, treemap and others), threaded comments, shapes, form controls, linked data types and custom XML stay as Excel saved them and move with inserted or deleted rows and columns and renamed sheets.
copy_sheetcopies sparklines, slicers and timelines (as Excel does), the Excel 2010 half of conditional formats (data bars, icon sets) and the Excel 2016 charts made bycreate_chart, but not the others. Deleting a sheet removes slicers that only it used; slicers that would be left without their PivotTable block the deletion, and deleting a table, or the column a table slicer filters, removes the slicer. Digital signatures are removed, as Excel does when a signed file changes.Formulas that return several values (
FILTER,SORT,UNIQUE,SEQUENCE,A2:A9*2) are stored as dynamic array formulas, as Excel stores them, and spill into the cells next to them. A cell in the way blocks the spill (Excel shows#SPILL!), andwrite_rangereports it. Where the calculator cannot tell how large a result is, only the formula's cell is stored and Excel fills in the rest when it opens the file.
Upgrading from 1.x
Version 2.0 makes tool and parameter names consistent across tools, which breaks 1.x clients and saved prompts. The changelog has a table that maps every 1.x name to its 2.0 replacement: Upgrading from 1.x. Coming from 0.x? See the 1.0.0 notes first.
Contributing
Contributions are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md.
License
MIT. See LICENSE.
This server cannot be deployed
Maintenance
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