Read-only iMessage MCP server

Gives an assistant read-only access to your macOS Messages so it can help you read, search, and analyze texts. It cannot send, edit, or delete anything — every database connection is opened with SQLite mode=ro. You send replies yourself.

What it reads

• ~/Library/Messages/chat.db — your iMessage/SMS history (read-only)

• ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/.../AddressBook-v22.abcddb — to turn phone numbers/emails into contact names (read-only, best effort)

It never writes to, copies, or transmits these anywhere — it just answers queries from whichever Claude client is connected.

Related MCP server: jons-mcp-imessage

Tools

Requirements

• uv installed (handles the Python deps automatically).

• Full Disk Access for whatever app runs the server, because chat.db is protected:

  • Claude Code (CLI): the terminal app you launch claude from (Terminal, iTerm, etc.).

  • Claude Desktop: the Claude.app itself. Grant it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access, then restart the app.

How it's wired up

• Claude Code: registered at user scope (~/.claude.json). Remove with claude mcp remove imessage-readonly.

• Claude Desktop: added under mcpServers in ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (a timestamped .bak of the original sits next to it). Restart the app to load it.

Notes

• On recent macOS the message text is stored in a binary attributedBody blob rather than the text column; server.py decodes it (handles emoji/accents).

• Timestamps are converted from Apple absolute time (nanoseconds since 2001-01-01).

• Override the database path with the IMESSAGE_DB environment variable if needed.