Apple Books

What is Apple Books MCP?

Apple Books MCP (Model Context Protocol) is a server that allows you to interact with your Apple Books library using large language models (LLMs) like Claude. It acts as a bridge, enabling AI to access and process information from your book collection, highlights, and notes.

How to use Apple Books MCP?

Installation:

• Using uv (recommended):

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

• Using pip:

  pip install apple-books-mcp
  python -m apple_books_mcp
  

Configuration with Claude Desktop:

• Using uvx:

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

• Using Python:

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

Key Features of Apple Books MCP

Apple Books MCP provides a set of tools to programmatically interact with your Apple Books data:

• Collection Management: List, get books within, and describe collections.
• Book Management: List all books, get book annotations, and describe individual books.
• Annotation Management: List all annotations, get highlights by color, search highlighted text, search notes, and perform full-text searches on annotations.
• Recent Activity: Retrieve the 10 most recent annotations.
• Detailed Annotation Information: Get details of a specific annotation.

Use Cases of Apple Books MCP

Apple Books MCP empowers users to leverage AI for various tasks related to their Apple Books library, including:

• Summarization: Ask an LLM (e.g., Claude) to summarize your recent highlights.
• Organization: Request an LLM to organize books in your library by genre.
• Recommendations: Get recommendations for similar books based on your reading history.
• Comparison: Compare notes from different books on the same subject.
• Advanced Search: Perform detailed searches within your highlights and notes.

Apple Books MCP FAQ

Q: What is MCP? A: MCP stands for Model Context Protocol, which is a standard for LLMs to interact with external tools and data.

Q: What are the upcoming features for Apple Books MCP? A: Planned features include Docker support, resource support, and the ability to edit collections and highlights.

Q: How can I contribute to Apple Books MCP? A: You can contribute by opening issues for bug reports, feature requests, or general discussions, or by forking the repository, making changes, and submitting a pull request.

Apple Books MCP

Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Apple Books.

At a glance

• Ask Claude to summarize your recent highlights
• Ask Claude to organize books in your library by genre
• Ask Claude to recommend similar books based on your reading history
• Ask Claude to compare notes from different books read on the same subject

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

And much more!

Available Tools

Tool	Description	Parameters
list_collections()	List all collections	None
get_collection_books(collection_id)	Get all books in a collection	collection_id: str
describe_collection(collection_id)	Get details of a collection	collection_id: str
list_all_books()	List all books	None
get_book_annotations(book_id)	Get all annotations for a book	book_id: str
describe_book(book_id)	Get details of a particular book	book_id: str
list_all_annotations()	List all annotations	None
get_highlights_by_color(color)	Get all highlights by color	color: str
search_highlighted_text(text)	Search for highlights by highlighted text	text: str
search_notes(note)	Search for notes	note: str
full_text_search(text)	Search for annotations containing the given text	text: str
recent_annotations()	Get 10 most recent annotations	None
describe_annotation(annotation_id)	Get details of an annotation	annotation_id: str

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

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"]
        }
    }
}

Upcoming Features

• add docker support
• add resources support
• edit collections support
• edit highlights support

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.