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 150+ 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
Step 1: Install LMCP on Your Mac
- Download the LMCP installer (.dmg, macOS 12+).
- Open the .dmg, drag Local MCP to Applications, and open it from Applications.
- macOS may ask you to confirm opening an app from the internet — click Open.
LMCP starts automatically and puts an icon in your menu bar. Setup takes about 30 seconds.
Step 2: Turn On Cloud Relay
Click the LMCP icon in your menu bar (top-right of the screen). In the popover, find the Web AIs · Via Cloud Relay section:
- Cloud Relay shows Connected (green) once LMCP is running — no email or login needed; the connection is authenticated by a token.
- Toggle Cloud Data Forwarding to ON. This is what lets a cloud AI call your data tools (off by default for privacy).
- Next to Connector token, click Copy URL — it copies your personal connector URL with the token built in:
https://www.local-mcp.com/mcp?token=YOUR_TOKENClaude.ai (unlike a desktop app) has no place to enter a token separately and doesn’t prompt to sign in, so the token travels in the URL — that’s what binds the connector to your Mac. The Copy URL button percent-encodes the token so it survives Claude.ai’s URL handling. (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.)
Step 3: Add the Connector in Claude.ai
Open Claude.ai web, then:
- Click your profile avatar → Settings → Customize (or go straight to claude.ai/customize/connectors)
- Click Connectors, then the + → Add custom connector
- Fill in:
- Name:
LMCP - Remote MCP server URL: paste the tokenized URL you copied above
- Name:
- Click Add. Claude.ai probes the URL, the token binds your session, and the LMCP connector moves to the Web (connected) section.
With Cloud Data Forwarding ON, the connector lists the full catalog (150+ tools). There is no separate sign-in or authorization popup — the token in the URL is the credential.
Keep this connector private: the URL contains your token. You can rotate it anytime from LMCP Settings, which invalidates the old URL.
Step 4: Try It in a Chat
Open a new conversation in Claude.ai. Make sure the LMCP connector is enabled in the chat (the connector toggle in the input bar). Then 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 150+ 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.