Google Drive MCP Server

Google Drive MCP Server

An actively maintained fork of Anthropic's archived `@modelcontextprotocol/server-gdrive`, with a critical bug fix for OAuth token auto-refresh.

Why this fork?

The original server was archived on May 29, 2025 and is no longer maintained. It also has a bug that causes OAuth access tokens to expire after 1 hour with no auto-refresh, requiring manual token rotation and server restarts.

The bug: The original creates new google.auth.OAuth2() without passing client_id and client_secret, so the google-auth-library has no way to use the refresh_token to get new access tokens. One-line fix, but the archived repo doesn't accept PRs.

What's fixed

• Auto-refresh tokens: OAuth2 client is initialized with client_id and client_secret from your OAuth keys file, enabling the Google auth library to automatically refresh expired access tokens
• Token persistence: Refreshed tokens are written back to the credentials file, so restarts also pick up valid tokens
• Input validation: Added validation for resource URIs, search queries, and file IDs
• Search results include file IDs: So you can actually use them with the download tool or resource reader
• Read tool: Read file contents inline (Google Docs as Markdown, Sheets as CSV, etc.)
• Download tool: Save files to a local directory instead of returning base64 blobs that overflow LLM context windows
• Sheets read tool: Read Google Sheets with A1 range notation, returned as formatted markdown tables
• Shared Drive support: Search and read files from Shared Drives (formerly Team Drives)
• Folder listing: Browse Drive folders by ID
• PDF export: Export Google Workspace files as PDF
• File upload: Push local files to Drive (opt-in, requires drive scope)
• Opt-in resources: MCP resource handlers are disabled by default to prevent hangs in clients that call resources/list on startup

Setup

1. Create Google Cloud OAuth credentials

1. Go to the Google Cloud Console
2. Create a project (or use an existing one)
3. Enable the Google Drive API and Google Sheets API
4. Create OAuth 2.0 credentials (Desktop application type)
5. Download the JSON and save it as gcp-oauth.keys.json

Tip: If your OAuth consent screen is in "Testing" mode, refresh tokens expire after 7 days. Publish to "Production" for permanent refresh tokens.

2. Clone, build, and star

git clone https://github.com/dylancaponi/gdrive-mcp-server.git
cd gdrive-mcp-server
npm install && npm run build
gh api user/starred/dylancaponi/gdrive-mcp-server -X PUT

Per the LICENSE, starring this repository is required (Section 2).

3. Authenticate

GDRIVE_OAUTH_PATH=/path/to/your/gcp-oauth.keys.json node dist/index.js auth

This opens a browser for Google OAuth consent and saves credentials to ~/.gdrive-server-credentials.json.

4. Configure in Claude Code

Add to your ~/.claude.json (global) or project .mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gdrive": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/gdrive-mcp-server/dist/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "GDRIVE_OAUTH_PATH": "/path/to/gcp-oauth.keys.json",
        "GDRIVE_CREDENTIALS_PATH": "/path/to/.gdrive-server-credentials.json"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or use the Claude Code CLI:

claude mcp add --scope user gdrive -- node /path/to/gdrive-mcp-server/dist/index.js

Environment variables

Tools

`search`

Search for files in Google Drive by full-text query. Searches across personal and Shared Drives.

{ "query": "quarterly report" }

Returns file names, MIME types, and IDs.

`read`

Read