Search your Messages with Claude

Steps

1. Export Messages into a folder next to your other export folders, like ~/Documents/messages beside ~/Documents/notes, and press “sync now” once the first pass finishes.
2. On the MCP Server card, press “start”.
3. Connect Claude Code:

claude mcp add --transport http exporter http://localhost:8744/mcp

4. Ask: “What did Anna and I agree about the trip?” A person’s name finds your conversation with them.

What you get

• search ranks Messages, Apple Notes and Contacts over the app’s index, so one question can reach a conversation and a note
• read returns a whole conversation as Markdown, a heading per day
• with Contacts exported too, Claude can answer “When is Anna’s birthday, and when did we last talk?” from the card and the conversation it links to

Pitfalls

• The server serves the export folders in the same parent folder as the Apple Notes one (without one, the first export folder it finds). Keep them side by side, then press “stop” and “start” on the card after any change.
• On the free allowance Claude sees your 10 most recent conversations. After unlocking, the next sync writes every conversation.
• What a tool returns becomes part of your conversation with Claude and goes to its model, like anything you paste.

Connecting other clients, and the six tools, are in the MCP server docs.