How to Connect Claude.ai Web to Your Mac
Give Claude.ai (web) direct access to your Mac apps — Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Teams, OneDrive, and 215+ tools. Privacy-first: a token-authenticated connector over the encrypted Cloud Relay, your data never leaves your Mac.
What This Lets You Do
Claude.ai web runs in the cloud, but your email, calendar, and Teams chats live on your Mac. With LMCP plus the Cloud Relay, Claude.ai can call tools that run directly on your Mac — over an encrypted WebSocket tunnel — and the data stays local.
From Claude.ai web you can ask:
- “Summarize my unread emails from this week”
- “What’s on my calendar today?”
- “Search emails about the Q3 budget”
- “Summarize the engineering Teams channel from yesterday”
Claude.ai sends the request to LMCP’s backend, the backend forwards it through the encrypted tunnel to your Mac, your Mac executes the tool locally (Mail.app, Calendar via EventKit, Teams via local cache), and the result returns to Claude.ai — usually in under 2 seconds.
Privacy Story
Cloud Data Forwarding is off by default and opt-in per machine. When off, the connector's tools/list advertises only setup_install (onboarding) — data tools are not listed until you enable forwarding.
When you turn it on, your data still comes from your Mac — nothing is stored in the cloud. The bytes transit through the encrypted tunnel between your Mac and the LMCP backend, but they’re never persisted server-side. Turn it off any time and Claude.ai instantly loses access to data tools.
What You Will Need
- macOS 12 (Monterey) or later — Apple Silicon or Intel
- A Claude.ai account — Pro recommended for custom connectors
How to Connect Claude.ai to Your Mac
Connect Claude.ai to your Mac
claude.ai → Settings → Customize → Connectors- 1
Install LMCP on your Mac
Download LMCP from local-mcp.com and run the installer — it installs Local MCP to Applications and auto-configures your AI clients in ~30 seconds.
- 2
Turn on web access and copy your Connection URL
Click the LMCP icon in your menu bar and find Your web AI · Cloud Relay. Turn web access ON (it is off by default for privacy), then open your assistant’s panel and click Copy URL.
That URL already contains your personal token — it looks like . Every step below that says “the URL you copied” means this one. Treat it like a password: anyone holding it can reach your Mac, and you can rotate it any time from the LMCP menu, which invalidates the old one. - 3
Open Claude’s connector settings
Open Settings → Customize → Connectors (connectors moved here from the old Settings page), or go straight to claude.ai/settings/connectors. On Team/Enterprise an owner has to add it first from Organization settings → Connectors.
- 4
Add a custom connector
Click Add → Add custom connector. Set Name: and Remote MCP server URL: paste the tokenized URL you copied (). Click Add.
- 5
Connect it — this is the step people miss
Add only registers the connector. It now reads “You’re not connected to LMCP yet” — click Connect, then Approve in the dialog that opens on your Mac. Claude only loads the tools after this.
- 6
Enable it in a chat
Start a new conversation, enable the LMCP connector, and ask: “List my email accounts” or “What’s on my calendar today?” With Cloud Data Forwarding ON you’ll see 215+ tools.
Steps verified 2026-08-08. 100% local · you confirm anything it sends · free.
Claude.ai (unlike a desktop app) has no place to enter a token separately, so the token travels in the URL — that’s what binds the connector to your Mac. Keep the URL private; you can rotate the token anytime from LMCP Settings, which invalidates the old URL. (No Copy URL button yet? Update LMCP, or click Copy for the raw token and append it to https://www.local-mcp.com/mcp?token=, replacing any __ with %5F%5F.)
Try It in a Chat
Open a new conversation in Claude.ai, make sure the LMCP connector is enabled (the connector toggle in the input bar), and ask in plain language:
- “List my email accounts”
- “What meetings do I have today?”
- “Show me the latest messages in the engineering Teams channel”
Claude routes the request through the Cloud Relay to your Mac, which executes the tool and returns the result. You’ll see a “Used LMCP integration” indicator above the response, and the answer usually arrives in under 2 seconds.
What Tools Are Available?
With Cloud Data Forwarding on, Claude.ai sees the same 215+ tools as the local lmcp connector:
- Mail (Mail.app + Outlook): list, read, search, send, reply, move, save attachments
- Calendar: list events, create, delete, check availability
- Contacts: search, list, get details
- Microsoft Teams: list chats, read messages, channel messages (no Graph API needed)
- OneDrive: list, read, write, move, delete, search files
- Notes & Reminders: list, search, create, complete
- Messages: read iMessage chats
- OmniFocus: list tasks, projects, complete, search
- Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF: read and create
- Finder & Safari: search files (Spotlight), list folders, bookmarks
Turning It Off
Open the LMCP menu bar popover → Web AIs section, toggle Cloud Data Forwarding back to OFF. The change is instant: Claude.ai immediately loses access to data tools (it’ll see the “cloud data forwarding is off” message). Your tunnel stays connected for onboarding (setup_install), but no data flows through.
Troubleshooting
Claude.ai shows only setup_install (1 tool)
The token didn’t bind. Two causes: (1) your connector URL is missing the ?token= (you pasted the bare https://www.local-mcp.com/mcp) — re-add it using the full Copy URL value. (2) Cloud Data Forwarding is OFF — toggle it ON in the Web AIs section. After either fix, open the LMCP connector in Claude.ai and use ⋮ → Refresh tools list (or remove and re-add).
Pasted the URL but still 1 tool
Claude.ai collapses a literal __ (double underscore) in a URL to a single _, which corrupts the token. Always use the Copy URL button (it percent-encodes the token), or hand-replace __ with %5F%5F in the URL.
Connector connects but tools fail
Make sure LMCP is running (menu bar dot is green) and Cloud Data Forwarding is ON. If the token was rotated, copy a fresh URL via Copy URL and re-add the connector.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can Claude.ai on the web access my Mac apps?
Yes. With LMCP's token-authenticated custom connector, Claude.ai web can read your email, manage your calendar and search Teams — requests route to your Mac and run locally.
Is it free, and do I need API keys?
LMCP is free and needs no API keys. Adding a custom connector on Claude.ai's side uses a paid Claude.ai plan — that's an Anthropic requirement, not an LMCP one.
How is this different from Claude Desktop?
Claude Desktop connects to LMCP locally over stdio; Claude.ai on the web reaches your Mac through the encrypted Cloud Relay tunnel. Same tools, either way.
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