lr-mcp

An unofficial MCP server for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom — the cloud-based Lightroom app, not Lightroom Classic. It talks to the Lightroom Partner API (https://lr.adobe.io) with your own Adobe credentials.

This project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Adobe. Adobe, Photoshop and Lightroom are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe in the United States and/or other countries.

Tools

Limits of the Partner API

• Edits (develop settings) and ratings of existing photos are read-only.
• Photos cannot be deleted.
• Albums you created in Lightroom cannot be modified; only project albums created through the API can.
• Preset contents cannot be read.

Setup

Setup takes about ten minutes. Steps marked [human] need a person at a browser; an AI agent can do the rest (see For AI agents).

Prerequisites

• An Adobe account with a Lightroom plan or trial.
• uv (uv --version). It installs Python 3.12+ itself if needed.
• openssl (openssl version). Preinstalled on macOS and most Linux distributions.

0. Install

uv tool install lr-mcp
lr-mcp doctor

This puts an lr-mcp command in ~/.local/bin (run uv tool update-shell and open a new terminal if the shell cannot find it). All later steps use it. Update with uv tool upgrade lr-mcp.

doctor checks the setup in order and prints the first thing to fix. Before you start step 1, it confirms that the sign-in callback port (8000 by default) is free; if it is not, choose another port now (see step 2) so the redirect URI you enter in step 1 matches.

1. Create an Adobe credential [human]

Each user needs their own credential: until Adobe reviews an integration it accepts only 25 beta users, so a shared client ID is not practical.

1. Sign in to the Adobe Developer Console and click Create new project.
2. In the project, click Add API, choose Lightroom Services, then pick the OAuth Web App credential type.
3. Set Default redirect URI to https://localhost:8000/callback and Redirect URI pattern to https://localhost:8000/.*, then save. (If you chose another port in step 0, use it here instead of 8000.)
4. Open Lightroom Services in the project's left menu, click Manage beta users, and add the email of the Adobe account you will sign in with. Without this, the API refuses the account.
5. Open Credentials → OAuth Web App and keep the Client ID and Client Secret at hand for step 2.

2. Save the credential

Settings live in a .env file in the state directory, which doctor prints on its first line (~/.config/lr-mcp/ by default). Environment variables with the same names override the file.

Create the file, then open it in an editor and paste the two values after the = signs (add LR_MCP_PORT=<port> if you are not using 8000):

mkdir -p ~/.config/lr-mcp
printf 'ADOBE_CLIENT_ID=\nADOBE_CLIENT_SECRET=\n' > ~/.config/lr-mcp/.env
chmod 600 ~/.config/lr-mcp/.env
open -e ~/.config/lr-mcp/.env      # macOS; on Linux use any editor, e.g. nano

To keep the state somewhere else, set the environment variable LR_MCP_HOME to a directory. It cannot go in .env (it says where .env is), so it must also be set for lr-mcp login and in the MCP client config ("env" in step 5). If XDG_CONFIG_HOME is set, the default is $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/lr-mcp.

3. Sign in [human]

lr-mcp login

A browser window opens on the Adobe sign-in page. Sign in with the account added as a beta user and allow access. Adobe then redirects to https://localhost:8000/callback, which uses a self-signed certificate, so the browser shows a certificate warning: choose Advanced → Proceed to localhost (Chrome) or Show Details → visit this website (Safari). The page then says "Signed in" and the terminal prints where the tokens were saved. Tokens are stored with mode 600 and refreshed automatically.

4. Check

lr-mcp doctor

Every line should start with [ok], ending in Catalog found. Setup is complete. Otherwise it prints a fix: for the first problem and exits with status 1.

5. Add to your MCP client

Claude Desktop. Edit the config file (create it if missing):

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

Add an entry under mcpServers, keeping any existing ones (if a lightroom entry already exists, replace it). Claude Desktop does not read your shell's PATH, so use the absolute path printed by which lr-mcp:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "lightroom": {
      "command": "/Users/<you>/.local/bin/lr-mcp"
    }
  }
}

If you set LR_MCP_HOME, add "env": {"LR_MCP_HOME": "/path/to/dir"} to the entry. Quit Claude Desktop completely and reopen it; the lr_* tools then appear in the tools menu. On macOS the server log is ~/Library/Logs/Claude/mcp-server-lightroom.log.

Claude Code:

claude mcp add lightroom -s user -- lr-mcp

The client config can be added before or after signing in; without tokens the tools reply "Not signed in" and lr_login can do the sign-in from the chat.

Troubleshooting

For AI agents

If a user asks you to set this server up:

• Never ask the user to paste the client secret into the chat, and never print .env. Create the file with empty values (step 2, using the state directory doctor prints) and ask the user to fill it in with an editor. To check it without revealing values, grep -cE '^ADOBE_CLIENT_(ID|SECRET)=.+' <state dir>/.env must print 2; doctor shows only the first characters of the client ID.
• Install (step 0) and run lr-mcp doctor before giving the user the console steps: it checks the callback port first, and the redirect URI they enter must use a free port. Run doctor again after every step; a fix: that starts with [human] is something to hand to the user.
• The user must create the credential, add the beta user, fill in .env, and finish the browser sign-in. Give them the exact console steps from step 1, with the port doctor reported in the redirect URI and pattern.
• lr-mcp login blocks for up to 5 minutes while the user signs in. Run it in the background or ask the user to run it, and warn them about the certificate page.
• Setup is done when doctor prints Catalog found. Setup is complete. Add the client config (step 5) before or after that. For Claude Desktop, merge into the existing JSON instead of overwriting it, use the absolute path from which lr-mcp, pass LR_MCP_HOME in "env" if it is set, and tell the user to quit and reopen the app.

Development

git clone https://github.com/longfin/lr-mcp && cd lr-mcp
uv sync
uv run lr-mcp doctor
uv run pytest

To run a checkout from an MCP client, use uv run --directory /path/to/lr-mcp lr-mcp as the command. Without installing, uvx lr-mcp <command> also works.

License

MIT