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
• Advanced Configuration
• Docker
• Project Structure
• Testing
• Complete Tool Reference
• Changelog

What You Can Do

This MCP server provides 25 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_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:

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

3. 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.

Advanced Configuration

Development Installation

For developers or users who want the latest features:

macOS/Linux:

git clone https://github.com/alondmnt/joplin-mcp.git
cd joplin-mcp
./install.sh

Windows:

git clone https://github.com/alondmnt/joplin-mcp.git
cd joplin-mcp
install.bat

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.

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

Tool Permissions

Content Exposure (Privacy Settings)

Docker

Run the MCP server in a container. Default transport is HTTP for broad compatibility; switch via environment variables.

Build

docker build -t joplin-mcp .

Run (HTTP default)

docker run --rm \
  -p 8000:8000 \
  -e JOPLIN_TOKEN=your_api_token \
  joplin-mcp

With mounted config

docker run --rm \
  -p 8000:8000 \
  -v $PWD/joplin-mcp.json:/config/joplin-mcp.json:ro \
  joplin-mcp

Choose transport

• SSE (streaming): -e MCP_TRANSPORT=sse
• Streamable HTTP: -e MCP_TRANSPORT=streamable-http
• STDIO (no port): -e MCP_TRANSPORT=stdio

Example (SSE):

docker run --rm \
  -p 8000:8000 \
  -e JOPLIN_TOKEN=your_api_token \
  -e MCP_TRANSPORT=sse \
  joplin-mcp

The container listens on 0.0.0.0:8000 by default. If exposing publicly, place behind a reverse proxy and terminate TLS there. For SSE, ensure proxy keep-alives and buffering are configured appropriately.

Project Structure

• src/joplin_mcp/ - Main package directory
  • fastmcp_server.py - Server implementation with 25 tools and Pydantic validation types
  • config.py - Configuration management
  • server.py - Server entrypoint (module and CLI)
  • ui_integration.py - UI integration utilities
• docs/ - Documentation (troubleshooting, privacy controls, enhancement proposals)
• tests/ - Test suite

Testing

Test your connection:

# For pip install
joplin-mcp-server --config ~/.joplin-mcp.json

# For development (from repo)
PYTHONPATH=src python -m joplin_mcp.server --config ./joplin-mcp.json

You should see:

Starting Joplin FastMCP Server...
Successfully connected to Joplin!
Found X notebooks, Y notes, Z tags
FastMCP server starting...
Available tools: 25 tools ready

Complete Tool Reference