Joplin MCP Server

A FastMCP-based Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Joplin note-taking application via its Python API joppy, enabling AI assistants to interact with your Joplin notes, notebooks, and tags through a standardized interface.

Table of Contents

• What You Can Do
• Quick Start
• Supported Clients
• Example Usage
• Tool Permissions
• Notebook Allowlist
• Advanced Configuration
• Docker
• Project Structure
• Testing
• Complete Tool Reference
• Changelog

What You Can Do

This MCP server provides 26 optimized tools for comprehensive Joplin integration:

Note Management

• Find & Search: find_notes (supports trash=True for trashed notes), find_notes_with_tag, find_notes_in_notebook, get_all_notes
• CRUD Operations: get_note, get_note_resources (read OCR text from attached images/PDFs), get_links, create_note, update_note, edit_note, delete_note

Notebook Management

• Organize: list_notebooks, create_notebook, update_notebook, delete_notebook

Tag Management

• Categorize: list_tags, create_tag, update_tag, delete_tag, get_tags_by_note
• Link: tag_note, untag_note

Trash Management

• Recover: restore_from_trash - Restore soft-deleted notes or notebooks

Import

• File Import: import_from_file - Import Markdown, HTML, CSV, TXT, JEX files and directories

System

• Health: ping_joplin

Quick Start

1. Open Joplin Desktop → Tools → Options → Web Clipper
2. Enable the Web Clipper service
3. Copy the Authorization token
4. Set up your preferred client below

Supported Clients

Any MCP-compatible client should work. Below are the ones with documented setup instructions.

Claude Desktop

Run the automated installer:

# Install and configure everything automatically (pip)
pip install joplin-mcp
joplin-mcp-install

# Or use zero-install with uvx (recommended if you have uv)
uvx --from joplin-mcp joplin-mcp-install

# Optional: pin a specific version/range for stability
uvx --from joplin-mcp==0.4.1 joplin-mcp-install
uvx --from 'joplin-mcp>=0.4,<0.5' joplin-mcp-install

This script will: - Configure your Joplin API token - Set tool permissions (Create/Update/Delete) - Set up Claude Desktop automatically - Test the connection

After setup, restart Claude Desktop and you're ready to go!

Claude Code

Install the orchestration plugin for smarter tool usage (edit vs update, long-note reading, bulk tagging):

/plugin marketplace add alondmnt/joplin-mcp
/plugin install joplin-mcp

You'll be prompted for your Joplin API token on first use. The skill is invoked automatically when working with Joplin tools, or manually with /joplin.

Jan AI

1. Install Jan AI from https://jan.ai

2. Add MCP Server in Jan's interface:

3. Open Jan AI
4. Go to Settings → Extensions → Model Context Protocol
5. Click Add MCP Server
6. Configure:
   • Name: joplin
   • Command: uvx --from joplin-mcp joplin-mcp-server (requires uv installed)
   • Environment Variables:
   • JOPLIN_TOKEN: your_joplin_api_token_here

7. Enable the server

8. Start chatting with access to your Joplin notes!

Automated Setup (Alternative)

# Install and configure Jan AI automatically (if Jan is already installed)
pip install joplin-mcp
joplin-mcp-install

This will detect and configure Jan AI automatically, just like Claude Desktop.

OllMCP (Local Ollama Models)

Auto-discovery (if you set up Claude Desktop first)

# Install ollmcp
pip install ollmcp

# Run with auto-discovery (requires existing Claude Desktop config)
ollmcp --auto-discovery --model qwen3:4b

Manual setup (works independently)

# Install ollmcp
pip install ollmcp

# Set environment variable
export JOPLIN_TOKEN="your_joplin_api_token_here"

# Run with uvx (requires uv installed)
ollmcp --server "joplin:uvx --from joplin-mcp joplin-mcp-server" --model qwen3:4b

# Or with an installed package (pip install joplin-mcp)
ollmcp --server "joplin:joplin-mcp-server" --model qwen3:4b

Example Usage

Once configured, you can ask your AI assistant:

• "List all my notebooks" - See your Joplin organization
• "Find notes about Python programming" - Search your knowledge base
• "Create a meeting note for today's standup" - Quick note creation
• "Tag my recent AI notes as 'important'" - Organize with tags
• "Show me my todos" - Find task items with find_notes(task=True)

Tool Permissions

The setup script offers 4 permission levels:

• Read (always enabled): Browse and search your notes safely
• Write (optional): Create new notes, notebooks, and tags
• Update (optional): Modify existing content
• Delete (optional): Remove content permanently

Choose the level that matches your comfort and use case.

Notebook Allowlist

Restrict AI access to specific notebooks using pattern-based access control. When configured, only matching notebooks (and their contents) are visible — all other notebooks are hidden.

Quick Setup

JSON config (joplin-mcp.json):

{
  "token": "your_token",
  "notebook_allowlist": ["Work", "Projects/Public"]
}

Environment variable:

export JOPLIN_NOTEBOOK_ALLOWLIST="Work,Projects/Public"

Pattern Syntax

Patterns use gitignore/gitwildmatch semantics:

Pattern	Matches	Example
Work	Exact notebook name (and all children)	Work, Work/Tasks, Work/Notes
Projects/*	Direct children of Projects	Projects/Alpha, Projects/Beta
Projects/**	All descendants recursively	Projects/Alpha/Tasks/Q1
!Projects/Secret	Exclude (negate) a specific path	Everything in Projects except Secret

Negation patterns always win over positive patterns (any negation match on a path or ancestor denies access).

How It Works

• Hierarchical access: Allowing a parent notebook grants access to all its children. Allowing Projects means notes in Projects/Work/Tasks are also accessible.
• Read protection: get_note, get_note_resources, find_notes, get_links — notes in blocked notebooks are filtered out or rejected.
• Write protection: create_note, update_note, edit_note, delete_note — operations on notes in blocked notebooks are rejected.
• Notebook operations: list_notebooks only shows accessible notebooks. create_notebook is rejected both under a blocked parent and at the top level (no parent_name) when an allowlist is set, and update_notebook rejects moves to top-level (parent_name="/") under the same policy — both would let the agent silently move a notebook out of allowlist-enforced scope. To grow the allowlist, create or relocate the notebook in the Joplin UI, then add it to notebook_allowlist and restart the server.
• Search filtering: find_notes results are filtered to only include notes in accessible notebooks.
• Tag operations: tag_note, untag_note, get_tags_by_note enforce access on the note's notebook.
• Error privacy: Blocked access raises a generic "Notebook not accessible" error without revealing notebook names or IDs.

Configuration Examples

Single project focus (notebook name containing a space):

{ "notebook_allowlist": ["Work Projects"] }

Multiple notebooks with exclusion:

{ "notebook_allowlist": ["Projects", "!Projects/Secret", "AI", "Reference"] }

Glob patterns:

{ "notebook_allowlist": ["Projects/*", "!Projects/Private"] }

No allowlist (default) — all notebooks accessible:

{ "notebook_allowlist": null }

Startup Behavior

At server startup, the allowlist is validated and logged: - Each entry is resolved against existing notebooks - Unresolvable patterns trigger warnings (but never block startup) - If the allowlist resolves to zero accessible notebooks, a warning is logged

---

Advanced Configuration

Development Installation

For developers or users who want the latest features:

git clone https://github.com/alondmnt/joplin-mcp.git
cd joplin-mcp
python bootstrap.py

bootstrap.py is cross-platform: it offers to create a ./venv, runs pip install -e ., then launches the interactive installer. Pass --no-venv to install into whichever Python is already active.

Manual Configuration

If you prefer manual setup or the script doesn't work:

Note on uvx: uvx runs Python applications without permanently installing them (requires uv: pip install uv). It can read and write user configuration files (e.g., Claude/Jan configs), so uvx --from joplin-mcp joplin-mcp-install works for setup just like a pip install.

Version pinning (optional): For long‑lived client configs or CI, you can pin or range-constrain the version for reproducibility, e.g. uvx --from joplin-mcp==0.4.1 joplin-mcp-install or uvx --from 'joplin-mcp>=0.4,<0.5' joplin-mcp-install.

1. Create Configuration File

Create joplin-mcp.json in your project directory:

{
  "token": "your_api_token_here",
  "host": "localhost", 
  "port": 41184,
  "timeout": 30,
  "verify_ssl": false
}

2. Claude Desktop Configuration

Add to your claude_desktop_config.json:

Option A: Using uvx (Zero-install)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "joplin": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--from", "joplin-mcp", "joplin-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "JOPLIN_TOKEN": "your_token_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Requires uv installed: pip install uv

Option B: Using installed package

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "joplin": {
      "command": "joplin-mcp-server",
      "env": {
        "JOPLIN_TOKEN": "your_token_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

3. More Client Configuration Examples

For additional client configurations including different transport options (HTTP, SSE, Streamable HTTP), see client-config.json.example.

This file includes configurations for: - STDIO transport (default, most compatible) - HTTP transport (basic HTTP server mode) - SSE transport (recommended for gemini-cli and OpenAI clients) - Streamable HTTP transport (advanced web clients) - HTTP-compat transport (bridges modern /mcp JSON-RPC with legacy /sse//messages clients)

Tool Permission Configuration

Fine-tune which operations the AI can perform by editing your config:

{
  "tools": {
    "create_note": true,
    "update_note": true,
    "delete_note": false,
    "create_notebook": true,
    "update_notebook": false,
    "delete_notebook": false,
    "create_tag": true,
    "update_tag": false,
    "delete_tag": false,
    "get_all_notes": false,
    "import_from_file": true
  }
}

Environment Variables

Alternative to JSON configuration:

# Connection settings
export JOPLIN_TOKEN="your_api_token_here"
export JOPLIN_HOST="localhost"
export JOPLIN_PORT="41184"
export JOPLIN_TIMEOUT="30"

Per-Tool Env Vars

Every tool can be toggled individually via JOPLIN_TOOL_<NAME>=true|false. These take precedence over config file settings.

Env var	Default
JOPLIN_TOOL_FIND_NOTES	true
JOPLIN_TOOL_FIND_NOTES_WITH_TAG	true
JOPLIN_TOOL_FIND_NOTES_IN_NOTEBOOK	true
JOPLIN_TOOL_FIND_IN_NOTE	true
JOPLIN_TOOL_GET_ALL_NOTES	false
JOPLIN_TOOL_GET_NOTE	true
JOPLIN_TOOL_GET_LINKS	true
JOPLIN_TOOL_CREATE_NOTE	true
JOPLIN_TOOL_UPDATE_NOTE	true
JOPLIN_TOOL_EDIT_NOTE	true
JOPLIN_TOOL_DELETE_NOTE	false
JOPLIN_TOOL_LIST_NOTEBOOKS	true
JOPLIN_TOOL_CREATE_NOTEBOOK	true
JOPLIN_TOOL_UPDATE_NOTEBOOK	false
JOPLIN_TOOL_DELETE_NOTEBOOK	false
JOPLIN_TOOL_LIST_TAGS	true
JOPLIN_TOOL_CREATE_TAG	true
JOPLIN_TOOL_UPDATE_TAG	false
JOPLIN_TOOL_DELETE_TAG	false
JOPLIN_TOOL_GET_TAGS_BY_NOTE	true
JOPLIN_TOOL_TAG_NOTE	true
JOPLIN_TOOL_UNTAG_NOTE	true
JOPLIN_TOOL_PING_JOPLIN	true
JOPLIN_TOOL_RESTORE_FROM_TRASH	true
JOPLIN_TOOL_IMPORT_FROM_FILE	false

Notebook Allowlist Env Var

Env var	Default	Description
JOPLIN_NOTEBOOK_ALLOWLIST	(not set)	Comma-separated list of notebook patterns (e.g., Work,Projects/*,!Projects/Secret)

HTTP Transport Support

The server supports both STDIO and HTTP transports:

# STDIO (default)
joplin-mcp-server --config ~/.joplin-mcp.json

# HTTP transport (development, from repo)
PYTHONPATH=src python -m joplin_mcp.server --transport http --port 8000 --config ./joplin-mcp.json

# Opt-in HTTP compatibility bundle (modern + legacy SSE endpoints)
PYTHONPATH=src python -m joplin_mcp.server --transport http-compat --port 8000 --config ./joplin-mcp.json
# or keep --transport http and export MCP_HTTP_COMPAT=1/true to toggle the same behavior.

HTTP client config

Note: Claude Desktop currently uses STDIO transport and does not consume HTTP/SSE configs directly. The following example applies to clients that support network transports.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "joplin": {
      "transport": "http",
      "url": "http://localhost:8000/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Configuration Reference

Basic Settings

Option	Default	Description