Apple Books MCP

Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Apple Books.

At a glance

• Pick up where you left off — Claude sees the chapter you're on and its text, plus recent highlights in the book.

• Expand on any highlight — get the surrounding paragraph explained in context, with the exact anchor you marked shown in «...».

• Revisit a book — pull your highlights, cluster them by theme, and quote you back to yourself.

• Reflect on your reading — patterns across books, recurring ideas in your highlights, what you're actually drawn to.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/77a5a29b-bfd7-4275-a4af-8d6c51a4527e

And much more!

Related MCP server: Co-Reading MCP

Available Tools

Collections

Editing collections (opt-in)

Off by default. Enable by adding --enable-writes to the server args:

"args": ["apple-books-mcp@latest", "--enable-writes"]

Apple provides no automation API for collections, so these write directly to the library database — behind guard rails: every write refuses while Books is open, takes an automatic WAL-safe backup first (~/.py_apple_books/backups/), validates the schema and aborts on drift, and only touches user-created collections (plus "Want to Read" membership). Deleting a collection never deletes the books in it.

⚠️ If iCloud sync for collections is enabled, direct edits may not propagate to other devices and can be reverted by a cloud re-sync.

Books

Reading Status

Annotations

Library Stats

Book Content

Only works for non-DRM EPUBs (imported books, Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks, etc.). Apple Books Store purchases are FairPlay-protected and return a clear error. iCloud-only books return a "not downloaded" hint.

Available Resources

Attachable data objects accessible from Claude Desktop's resource picker.

Available Prompts

One-click workflows, accessible from Claude Desktop's prompt picker.

Installation

Using uv (recommended)

uvx can be used to directly run apple-books-mcp (without installing it).

brew install uv  # for macos
uvx apple-books-mcp

Using pip

pip install apple-books-mcp

After installing, you can run the server using:

python -m apple_books_mcp

Using Docker

docker run -v ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iBooksX/Data/Documents:/root/Library/Containers/com.apple.iBooksX/Data/Documents:ro ghcr.io/vgnshiyer/apple-books-mcp:latest

First-run permission prompt (macOS)

On first use, macOS will ask whether uvx (or python / docker, depending on how you launched) may "access data from other apps." Click Allow — the MCP reads Apple Books' private container at ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iBooksX/, which macOS treats as another app's sandboxed data. Access is read-only and scoped to that container; the server starts successfully either way, but without permission every tool comes back empty.

Configuration

Claude Desktop Setup

Using uvx (recommended)

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apple-books-mcp": {
            "command": "uvx",
            "args": [ "apple-books-mcp@latest" ]
        }
    }
}

Using python

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apple-books-mcp": {
            "command": "python",
            "args": ["-m", "apple_books_mcp"]
        }
    }
}

Using Docker

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apple-books-mcp": {
            "command": "docker",
            "args": [
                "run", "-i", "--rm",
                "-v", "~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iBooksX/Data/Documents:/root/Library/Containers/com.apple.iBooksX/Data/Documents:ro",
                "ghcr.io/vgnshiyer/apple-books-mcp:latest"
            ]
        }
    }
}

Upcoming Features

• PDF content access (currently EPUB-only)

• fuller annotation context via CFI → paragraph resolution

Contribution

Thank you for considering contributing to this project!

Development

If you cloned this repository, you can test it using Claude Desktop with below configuration:

Use uv venv to create a virtual environment and install the dependencies.

uv venv
uv sync

Debugging

With Claude Desktop

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apple-books-mcp": {
            "command": "uv",
            "args": [
                "--directory",
                "/path/to/apple-books-mcp/",
                "run",
                "apple_books_mcp",
                "-v"
            ]
        }
    }
}

With inspector

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uvx apple-books-mcp

Opening Issues

If you encounter a bug, have a feature request, or want to discuss something related to the project, please open an issue on the GitHub repository. When opening an issue, please provide:

Bug Reports: Describe the issue in detail. Include steps to reproduce the bug if possible, along with any error messages or screenshots.

Feature Requests: Clearly explain the new feature you'd like to see added to the project. Provide context on why this feature would be beneficial.

General Discussions: Feel free to start discussions on broader topics related to the project.

Contributing

1️⃣ Fork the GitHub repository https://github.com/vgnshiyer/apple-books-mcp
2️⃣ Create a new branch for your changes (git checkout -b feature/my-new-feature).
3️⃣ Make your changes and test them thoroughly.
4️⃣ Push your changes and open a Pull Request to main.

Please provide a clear title and description of your changes.

License

Apple Books MCP is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license. See the LICENSE file for details.