Excel MCP Server

An open-source Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that lets Claude, Cursor, VS Code Copilot, Codex and other AI clients create, read and edit Excel files: charts, PivotTables, formulas, tables and more. It is built on openpyxl, needs no Microsoft Excel, and runs on Windows, macOS and Linux.

Install and try it at excelmcpserver.com, or see Quick start below.

Features

Charts and PivotTables

• Create Excel charts with AI: column, bar, line, area, pie, doughnut, radar, scatter and bubble, with combos, secondary axes, trendlines and error bars
• The Excel 2016 chart types: waterfall, histogram, Pareto, box and whisker, treemap, sunburst and funnel
• Real PivotTables that Excel refreshes (grouping, calculated fields, "show values as", layouts, filters), plus slicers and timelines for PivotTables and tables
• Sparklines (line, column, win/loss)

Formulas and dynamic arrays

• Formulas are calculated without Excel by a built-in engine (about 260 functions, checked against more than 2,500 formulas recorded from real Excel), so read_range returns values for files that were never opened in Excel
• Dynamic arrays (FILTER, SORT, UNIQUE, SEQUENCE, LET) are stored as Excel stores them and spill into the cells next to them

Data, tables and rules

• Read and write cells, dates and hyperlinks; tables with totals rows and calculated columns
• Conditional formatting (scales, data bars, icon sets, top/bottom, duplicates, text, dates), data validation (dropdowns, limits, input messages)
• Sort, filter (with criteria), find and replace, remove duplicates, text to columns, fill series, paste special
• Fonts, fills, borders, number formats, merged cells, frozen panes, grouping, print setup, sheet protection, images, notes and defined names. Inserting or deleting rows and columns updates every reference, as in Excel

Large files

• Reads stream the workbook and return pages, so memory stays flat on sheets with hundreds of thousands of rows; every call is bounded by size and cell limits

Macros (opt-in)

• Read the VBA code in .xlsm files. Writing VBA is off unless you start the server with --allow-vba-write; the server never runs macros

Safe by design

• Optional folder confinement, a formula safety check, read-only mode, localhost-only HTTP by default, and atomic saves that never leave a half-written file

Works with .xlsx, .xlsm (macros are preserved), .xltx and .xltm files. Existing threaded comments, shapes, form controls and other content the tools cannot edit are kept as they are.

Quick start

You need uv. Every client runs the server with uvx excel-mcp-server stdio; replace /path/to/workbooks with the folder the server may use. excelmcpserver.com has the same steps with copy buttons and one-click install links for Cursor and VS Code.

Claude Desktop (Chat): download excel-mcp-server.mcpb from the latest release and open it. Claude asks which folder the server may use.

Claude Code (the CLI, and the Code tab in Claude Desktop):

claude mcp add excel --scope user -- uvx excel-mcp-server stdio --allow-dir /path/to/workbooks