Mendeley MCP Server

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that connects your Mendeley reference library to LLM applications like Claude Desktop, Cursor, and other MCP-compatible clients.

Features

• Search your library - Find papers by title, author, abstract, or notes
• Manage folders - Browse, create, rename, delete, and nest collections
• Get full metadata - Retrieve complete document details including abstracts
• Search global catalog - Access Mendeley's 100M+ paper database
• DOI lookup - Find papers by their DOI
• Manage documents - Add, update, delete, and organize entries across folders
• Read your annotations - Surface the highlights and notes you made on PDFs
• Export BibTeX - Generate citation entries for a document or a whole folder
• Download attached files - Retrieve document files when Mendeley exposes them

Prerequisites

1. Mendeley Account - Sign up at mendeley.com (uses Elsevier authentication)
2. Mendeley API App - Register at dev.mendeley.com/myapps.html
   • Sign in with your Elsevier credentials
   • Click "Register a new app"
   • Set redirect URL to http://localhost:8585/callback
   • Select "Authorization code" flow (not Legacy)
   • Note your Client ID and Client Secret

Installation

Using pip

pip install mendeley-mcp

Using uv (recommended)

uv tool install mendeley-mcp

Using Docker

docker run -it \
  -e MENDELEY_CLIENT_ID="your-client-id" \
  -e MENDELEY_CLIENT_SECRET="your-client-secret" \
  -e MENDELEY_REFRESH_TOKEN="your-refresh-token" \
  ghcr.io/pallaprolus/mendeley-mcp

Or build locally:

git clone https://github.com/pallaprolus/mendeley-mcp.git
cd mendeley-mcp
docker build -t mendeley-mcp .

From source

git clone https://github.com/pallaprolus/mendeley-mcp.git
cd mendeley-mcp
pip install -e .

Quick Start

1. Authenticate with Mendeley

Run the authentication wizard:

mendeley-auth login

This will:

1. Prompt for your Client ID and Client Secret
2. Open your browser to authorize the app
3. Save your credentials securely in your system keyring

2. Add to Claude Desktop

Edit your Claude Desktop config file:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mendeley": {
      "command": "mendeley-mcp"
    }
  }
}

If installed with uv:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mendeley": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["mendeley-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop

The Mendeley tools should now be available in Claude.

Available Tools

Tool Reference

mendeley_search_library

Use this when the paper should already exist in the user's library.

• Searches title, authors, abstract, and notes
• Returns concise metadata, formatted citation text, and has_pdf
• Best first step before falling back to the catalog

mendeley_get_document

Use this after you already know the library document_id.

• Returns fuller metadata than the search tool
• Includes identifiers, keywords, tags, timestamps, abstract, and PDF presence
• Best for inspection, summarization, and follow-up actions on a known document

mendeley_list_documents

Use this to browse the library instead of searching by keyword.

• Can scope results to a specific folder_id
• Supports sorting by last_modified, created, or title
• Useful for reviewing recent additions or the contents of one collection

mendeley_list_folders

Use this to understand the collection hierarchy before listing documents by folder.

• Returns folder IDs and names
• Includes parent_id to reconstruct nesting
• Useful when an LLM needs to navigate a library structure safely

mendeley_search_catalog

Use this when the reference is not in the user's library or when you want broader discovery.

• Searches Mendeley's global catalog
• Returns catalog_id, summary metadata, and truncated abstract text
• Good fallback when mendeley_search_library does not find a match

mendeley_get_by_doi

Use this when a DOI is known and you want a higher-confidence lookup than free-text search.

• Resolves the DOI in the Mendeley catalog
• Returns catalog_id plus richer catalog metadata
• Useful before mendeley_add_document or mendeley_get_file_content

mendeley_add_document

Use this to create a library entry from metadata you already have.

• Creates a new Mendeley library record
• Accepts title, authors, year, source, abstract, and identifiers
• Does not upload a PDF by itself

mendeley_update_document

Use this to fix or enrich an existing library entry.

• Updates only the fields you supply (title, type, authors, year, source, abstract, identifiers)
• Returns the document's state after the update
• Useful for correcting a wrong year, adding a missing abstract, or fixing identifiers

mendeley_delete_document

Use this to permanently remove a document from the library.

• Destructive and not reversible through the API
• The tool description instructs the model to confirm with the user first

mendeley_remove_document_from_folder

Use this to take a document out of a folder while keeping it in the library.

• Complements mendeley_add_document_to_folder — together they let you move documents between folders
• Does not delete the document itself

mendeley_get_annotations

Use this to see what the user highlighted or noted in a paper's PDF.

• Returns the user's own annotations: highlights and sticky notes
• Includes note text, highlight color, and the page numbers involved
• The most direct signal of what the user found important in a paper

mendeley_export_bibtex

Use this when the user needs citations in a real reference format.

• Provide document_id for one entry or folder_id for a whole collection
• BibTeX is generated by Mendeley itself, not templated locally
• Returns raw text ready to paste into a .bib file

mendeley_get_file_content

Use this to try downloading the first file Mendeley exposes for a library document or catalog hit.

• Accepts either a library document_id or a catalog_id
• Returns structured metadata and an embedded PDF resource when available
• If no file exists, returns a clear no-file result instead of failing silently
• Catalog results often have no downloadable attachment for copyright or licensing reasons
• Files larger than 10 MB are reported but not embedded, to avoid flooding the client's context window (adjust with the MENDELEY_MCP_MAX_FILE_BYTES environment variable)
• Note: most MCP clients (including Claude Code) do not decode the embedded PDF resource into readable content — they pass it to the model as raw base64. To have the model actually read a paper, use mendeley_get_document_text instead.

mendeley_get_document_text

Use this when the user wants the model to read, summarize, or answer questions about a paper's contents.