Google Contacts MCP

Google Contacts MCP

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A1 Google Contacts MCP lets an AI app manage your Google address book in plain language. Find a contact, create or update one, organize contacts with labels, run batch imports and clean-ups, and turn auto-saved "Other contacts" into real ones.

It uses the Google People API — the API behind Google Contacts — with your Google account. It guards every update against concurrent edits, keeps reads compact with explicit field masks and makes the limits of the People API explicit instead of implying that every contacts task is possible.

• 25 tools. List, search and read contacts, create, update and delete them one at a time or in batches, manage contact groups and membership, and reach "Other contacts".
• Connects from the conversation. Say "connect Google Contacts": the server walks you through the OAuth client, catches Google's redirect on 127.0.0.1 with PKCE and keeps the tokens itself — no config files, no restart.
• Updates don't clobber. Every update is etag-guarded: if a contact changed elsewhere since it was read, the write fails instead of silently overwriting the concurrent edit.
• Deletes are real. The People API has no trash; deleting a contact or group is permanent, and the server marks those tools destructive so your AI app can ask first.
• Minimal Google scopes. It uses contacts for read/write — contacts.readonly is enough for a read-only setup — plus contacts.other.readonly only for "Other contacts", without broad account access.

Start with a read-only question:

Find everyone from Acme in my contacts and show their emails and phone numbers.

Connect the server · Explore use cases · Open technical documentation

See it work in a minute

You: Show my contact card for Jane Doe — email, phone and company.

Assistant: Finds the contact and shows the requested fields. Nothing changes.

You: Change her phone number to +1 415 555 0100 and add her to the "Clients" label.

Assistant: Shows the contact and the proposed change, then asks for confirmation before writing.

You: Confirm.

Assistant: Applies the etag-guarded update and the label. If the contact changed elsewhere in the meantime, the write fails instead of overwriting it.

Contents

• Quick start
• What you can ask it to do
• How a contact changes
• What can change
• Getting access
• Configuration
• Data, limits and background work
• Technical documentation
• Support

Quick start

You need Node.js 20+ and a Google account. Credentials are not required at install time — the server connects from the conversation.

1. Add the server to your AI app.
2. Say "connect Google Contacts": the assistant walks you through creating the OAuth client and approving access without editing config files.
3. Ask the read-only question above.

In the app: open Settings → MCP servers, select Add server, choose STDIO, enter the command npx -y mcp-google-contacts@latest and environment variables GOOGLE_CONTACTS_CLIENT_ID, GOOGLE_CONTACTS_CLIENT_SECRET, GOOGLE_CONTACTS_REFRESH_TOKEN, then select Save and Restart.

From the command line:

codex mcp add google-contacts \
  -- npx -y mcp-google-contacts@latest

codex mcp list

Codex MCP documentation

claude mcp add \
  --transport stdio --scope user google-contacts \
  -- npx -y mcp-google-contacts@latest

claude mcp list

Claude Code MCP documentation

The current official path is Settings → Extensions. For a custom desktop extension, open Advanced settings → Extension Developer → Install Extension…, select a .mcpb file and follow the prompts.

This repository currently publishes an npm stdio package and does not contain a .mcpb bundle. For Claude Desktop builds that still support local configuration, use the following JSON stdio configuration as a fallback:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "google-contacts": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-google-contacts@latest"]
    }
  }
}

In those builds, save it to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on macOS or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json on Windows.

Claude Desktop MCP documentation

Add this to ~/.cursor/mcp.json on macOS/Linux or %USERPROFILE%\.cursor\mcp.json on Windows:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "google-contacts": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-google-contacts@latest"]
    }
  }
}

Cursor MCP documentation

Run MCP: Open User Configuration and add:

{
  "servers": {
    "google-contacts": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-google-contacts@latest"]
    }
  }
}

Check it with MCP: List Servers.

VS Code MCP documentation

What you can ask it to do

Find and inspect contacts

• Find everyone from Acme and show their emails and phone numbers.
• Show who is in the "Clients" label.
• List the contacts that changed since the last sync.

Keep the address book up to date

• Create a contact for Jane Doe with her email, phone and company.
• Update a contact's phone number or job title.
• Import fifty people in one batch, or delete outdated contacts in one call.

Organize with labels

• Create a "Clients" label and add these contacts to it.
• Rename a label, or move a contact from one label to another.
• Delete a label without deleting its contacts — or with them, but only when asked explicitly.

Work with "Other contacts"

• Show the addresses Google saved automatically that are not in my contacts.
• Copy one of them into My Contacts as a real contact.

How a contact changes

1. Every contact, group and Other contact has a full resource name (people/c..., contactGroups/..., otherContacts/...); tools address records by it, exactly as the API returns it.
2. Reads return only the fields named in the field mask (default: names, emails, phones, organizations, group memberships). An absent field may simply be outside the mask, not empty.
3. An update replaces each provided field group as a whole and is guarded by an etag: if the contact changed elsewhere since it was read, the write fails instead of overwriting the concurrent edit.
4. Deletes are permanent. The People API has no trash and no undo.

Search covers a cache that can lag recent writes by a few seconds and returns at most 30 results. "Other contacts" — addresses Google saves automatically — can only be read or copied into My Contacts, not edited in place. Contact photos have no dedicated tool; raw_request reaches those endpoints.

What can change

The AI client controls confirmation prompts. The server marks reads, writes and destructive tools so the client can distinguish an inspection from a live change.

Getting access

Google Contacts requires OAuth 2.0; an API key is not enough. There are two ways in, and the first one needs no configuration files.

Connect from the chat (recommended)

Say "connect Google Contacts" and the assistant runs the flow with you:

1. setup_instructions prints the checklist: create or select a Google Cloud project, enable Google People API, configure the consent screen and create a Desktop app OAuth client.
2. Download that client's JSON ("Download JSON") and give the assistant its path — set_client stores it owner-only. The secret never goes through the conversation.
3. start_login returns a Google consent link. Open it on this machine and approve; the code comes back to a one-shot listener on 127.0.0.1 (PKCE), never through the chat.
4. finish_login exchanges the code and saves the tokens to ~/.config/mcp-google-contacts/credentials.json (mode 0600) and verifies them with a real Google People API call — so an API that is still switched off is caught right there.

The tokens are re-read on every call, so the connection works immediately — no restart of the AI app. auth_status shows what is connected, logout revokes and deletes it.

Environment variables (CI, unattended installs)

1. Create or select a Google Cloud project and enable People API.

2. Configure the OAuth consent screen and create a Desktop app OAuth client.

3. Authorize the Google account whose contacts you want to manage. The OAuth 2.0 Playground can obtain the refresh token when Use your own OAuth credentials is enabled.

4. Request the minimal scopes for what you use:

   https://www.googleapis.com/auth/contacts
   https://www.googleapis.com/auth/contacts.other.readonly
   

contacts covers reading and writing contacts and groups; for a read-only setup contacts.readonly alone is enough. contacts.other.readonly is needed only by the "Other contacts" tools. A 403 on a single tool usually means the refresh token was minted without the scope that tool needs — re-consent with the missing scope added.

Testing-mode OAuth refresh tokens can expire after seven days. Publish the OAuth app, or use an Internal app in a Workspace domain, when you need long-lived access. Treat the client secret and refresh token as passwords.

Configuration

Every variable is optional — with none of them the server connects from the chat.

* Provide either the OAuth trio or an access token. With no credentials at all the server still starts and completes the MCP handshake; the first tool call then names the exact variables to set.

Data, limits and background work

• Requests go to Google. The local server refreshes Google OAuth tokens and calls the People API at people.googleapis.com. Its anonymous telemetry contains an installation ID, package version, AI client and platform versions, and tool names — never OAuth tokens, contact data, tool arguments or prompts. Set ASKADS_TELEMETRY=0 to opt out.
• Google quotas are per-user and low. The default People API quota allows roughly 90 reads and 90 writes per user per minute, so the batch tools beat loops of single calls; mutating batches must run one at a time. On 429 the server backs off and retries; reads also retry after network and 5xx errors, while writes are not replayed after an uncertain failure.
• There is no background polling. The server runs only when called. list_contacts supports sync tokens, so an AI app with scheduled tasks can periodically fetch only what changed; a sync token expires after about seven days, after which a full re-list is needed.

Technical documentation

• MCP capability catalog — task-oriented pages for every tool.
• All tools and inputs
• Development documentation
• Publishing documentation
• Google People API reference

Support

Found a bug or need a scenario? Create an issue or write in Telegram.