How to Connect Perplexity to Your Mac
Give Perplexity access to your Mac apps — Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Teams, OneDrive, and 230+ tools — over the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Privacy-first: opt-in via the encrypted Cloud Relay, your data never leaves your Mac.
What This Lets You Do
Perplexity runs in the cloud, but your email, calendar, and Teams chats live on your Mac. With LMCP plus the Cloud Relay, Perplexity can call tools that run directly on your Mac through the Model Context Protocol. Ask it:
- “Summarize my unread emails from this week”
- “What’s on my calendar tomorrow?”
- “Find the Teams message where Marco mentioned the API migration”
- “Draft a reply to Sarah’s email about the budget”
Perplexity sends the request to the LMCP backend, the backend forwards it through an encrypted WebSocket tunnel to your Mac, your Mac runs the tool, and the result comes back — 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 — data tools are not listed until you enable forwarding. When you turn it on, your data still comes from your Mac: the relay only passes the request through, it never stores your email, messages, or files.
How to Connect Perplexity to Your Mac
Connect Perplexity to your Mac
Perplexity → Settings → 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 the Cloud Relay
Open the LMCP menu bar app → Settings → Connect and toggle Cloud Data Forwarding ON (off by default for privacy). Click Copy next to Token — you paste it once on the authorize page.
- 3
Open Perplexity’s connector settings
Go to Settings → Connectors (or Integrations) and add a new custom MCP connector.
- 4
Add the connector
Set Name: , Server URL: , and for Authentication paste the Token you copied from the LMCP menu bar. Save.
- 5
Enable it in a chat
Start a new thread, enable the LMCP connector, and ask: “What’s on my calendar today?”
Steps verified 2026-07-14. 100% local · you confirm anything it sends · free.
Perplexity’s MCP connector UI is new and the exact menu may vary by version; the two things that matter are the server URL https://www.local-mcp.com/mcp and your token. The connector also supports OAuth, where Perplexity auto-discovers our endpoints and you approve once with the same token.
Try It
Start a new thread in Perplexity and ask:
- “List my email accounts”
- “What meetings do I have today?”
- “Search my emails for ‘invoice’ this month”
Perplexity routes the request through the Cloud Relay to your Mac, which runs the tool and returns the result.
What Tools Are Available?
- Mail (Mail.app + Outlook): list, read, search, send, reply, move, save attachments
- Calendar & Reminders: list, create, delete, complete
- Contacts: search, list, get details
- Microsoft Teams & Slack: list chats, read messages, channel messages
- OneDrive: list, read, write, move, delete, search files
- Notes, Messages, OmniFocus: list, search, create, complete
- Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF: read and create
- Finder & Safari: search files (Spotlight), list folders, bookmarks
FAQ
Does Perplexity support MCP connectors?
Yes — Perplexity ships an MCP client (it connects to remote MCP servers like LMCP). LMCP exposes a standard MCP server at https://www.local-mcp.com/mcp, so you add it as a custom connector and authenticate with your token.
Does my data go to Perplexity’s servers or LMCP’s?
Neither stores it. The request passes through the LMCP relay to your Mac, which runs the tool locally and returns only the result. Cloud Data Forwarding is opt-in and off by default.
Do I need an API key or a paid plan?
No API keys. LMCP is free, and the connector is authenticated by your per-machine token — nothing to buy.