What is MCP Filesystem Server?
The official MCP Filesystem Server, maintained by Anthropic, gives any MCP-compatible AI client direct access to files and directories on your local machine. It exposes tools for reading files, listing directories, writing content, creating and deleting files, and moving paths.
Read the full overview
Access is scoped to the directories you pass at startup, so the AI can only reach what you explicitly allow. It is the most commonly used MCP server and the recommended starting point for any Claude Desktop or Cursor setup that needs to interact with local project files.
Give Claude read and write access to your local filesystem
Key capabilities
File operations
Read, write, create, move, delete, and list files and directories within the configured scope. Supports recursive listings and glob patterns for batch operations across a project tree.
Path scoping
Each allowed directory is declared at server startup. The AI cannot read or write outside those boundaries, which makes it safe to use on machines that hold sensitive files alongside a project directory.
Official support
Maintained in the modelcontextprotocol/servers monorepo by Anthropic. Updates are released alongside new MCP specification versions.
Where MCP Filesystem Server fits
Compatible with Claude Desktop, Cursor, Cline, and any MCP-compatible client. Install via npm (npx) or pip (uvx) depending on the server implementation language.
Positioning and limitations
No other MCP server is installed more often. Every Claude Desktop tutorial starts here, and most Cursor and Cline workflows add it as their first server. The scoped-path model is strict enough for shared machines and simple enough for personal use.
MCP servers extend AI clients beyond their training data by giving them access to live systems: local files, databases, APIs, and services. Each server adds a set of typed tools the AI can call, inspect results from, and chain into multi-step workflows, all within a single conversation context.
“Give Claude read and write access to your local filesystem”
Technical details
- Access
- See vendor
- Source model
- Open source
- License
- Verify license
- Founded
- Not specified
- Pricing model
- Free
- API
- Not specified
- Website
- github.com ↗
- GitHub
- Source repository ↗
What to verify
Start from the users, systems and operating responsibilities the tool needs to support.
- Confirm current features, licensing and support terms.
- Validate deployment, data location and access control.
- Test integrations, exports and recovery workflows.
Install
npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem /path/to/dirReviews of MCP Filesystem Server
No published reviews yet.
Loading review form…