drive-mcp

A minimal Model Context Protocol server for one Google Drive account, served over stdio. It gives an MCP client such as Claude Code the ability to search, read, download, create, edit, organize and share files using your own Google OAuth client.

Why

Google's hosted Drive MCP endpoint requires the Cloud project to be enrolled in the Google Workspace Developer Preview Program, which asks for a Workspace account. A personal Google account cannot use it. This server sidesteps that by talking to the Drive API itself with a Desktop-app OAuth client that you create in your own Google Cloud project. No third party sits between the client and your files.

Related MCP server: Google Docs MCP Proxy

Scope and safety

The server requests the full drive scope. That is deliberate: the narrower drive.file scope only reaches files the app itself created, which would rule out reading, editing or organizing anything already in the account.

Because the scope is broad, the tool surface is the safety boundary:

• Nothing permanently deletes. trash_file moves to the trash, where Drive keeps things for 30 days and untrash_file brings them back. There is no tool to empty the trash.

• Sharing never emails anyone unless sendNotificationEmail is set to true.

• Link sharing is created with allowFileDiscovery off, so shared links are never searchable.

• download_file refuses to overwrite a local file unless told to.

Pin every write tool to an "ask" rule in your MCP client so it prompts on every call regardless of the session's permission mode. In Claude Code that is a block in .claude/settings.local.json of the project where the server is registered:

{
  "permissions": {
    "ask": [
      "mcp__drive__create_file",
      "mcp__drive__create_folder",
      "mcp__drive__upload_file",
      "mcp__drive__update_file_content",
      "mcp__drive__update_file_metadata",
      "mcp__drive__copy_file",
      "mcp__drive__trash_file",
      "mcp__drive__untrash_file",
      "mcp__drive__share_file",
      "mcp__drive__unshare_file"
    ]
  }
}

The tool name prefix is mcp__<server name>__, so adjust it to whatever name you register the server under.

Tools

Read

Write

Files

Setup

Requires Node.js 20 or newer.

1. In Google Cloud Console, signed in as the Google account you want to expose: create a project and enable the Google Drive API.

2. Configure the OAuth consent screen as External and add that same account as a test user.

3. Create an OAuth client ID of type Desktop app and download its JSON to credentials.json in this directory. If you already have a Desktop client from another tool in the same project, the same file works here; each server keeps its own token.

4. Install dependencies and run the consent flow:

   npm install
   npm run auth

   A browser opens on the Google consent screen. When it finishes, the script prints which account the token belongs to. Set DRIVE_MCP_ACCOUNT to the expected address if you want a warning when the wrong account was used.

5. Register the server with your MCP client. For Claude Code, from the project where you want it available:

   claude mcp add drive -- node /absolute/path/to/drive-mcp/server.js

Configuration

Everything defaults to files next to the code. Override with environment variables when the server runs from elsewhere or when several accounts share one checkout.

To change the scope, edit SCOPES in config.js and re-run npm run auth. An existing token keeps its old scope, and API calls fail with insufficient authentication scopes until it is reissued.

Notes

• Staying in OAuth "Testing" status is fine for personal use; no Google verification is needed. Refresh tokens for an app in Testing status expire 7 days after they are issued, whether or not the app is used. This is not an idle timeout: a token used every single day still stops working on day 7. Re-run npm run auth when calls start failing with invalid_grant.

• credentials.json and token.json are secrets. They are gitignored here, but treat any copy of them like a password.

• Sibling projects: gmail-mcp and calendar-mcp.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.