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iCloud Calendar MCP Server

PyPI Python 3.12+ License: MIT

A Model Context Protocol server that gives MCP clients access to iCloud Calendar over CalDAV: list calendars, read, create, update, move and delete events. It works on Linux, macOS and Windows, since it talks to iCloud directly instead of going through the macOS Calendar app.

This is a maintained fork of zwrong/iCalendar, itself derived from the macOS mcp-ical server. See Changes in this fork.

Tools

Tool Description
list_calendars Names of the available calendars
list_events Events in a date range, optionally for one calendar, sorted by start time
create_event New event: title, times, all-day, location, notes, URL, alarms, recurrence
update_event Change any of those fields, or move the event to another calendar
delete_event Delete an event by identifier
debug_calendar_connection Connection check: calendars and event counts over the last 7 days

The calendars://list resource also lists the calendars. With MCP_ICAL_READ_ONLY=true, the three write tools are not registered at all.

Requirements

  • Python 3.12 or later and uv
  • An Apple ID with iCloud Calendar enabled
  • An app-specific password for that Apple ID

App-specific password

  1. Sign in to appleid.apple.com, open Sign-In and Security, then App-Specific Passwords.
  2. Generate a password, for example named mcp-icloud-caldav.

The username is your Apple ID address, which is not necessarily an @icloud.com address. An app-specific password gives access to iCloud CalDAV, CardDAV and IMAP: keep it out of version control and revoke it if it leaks.

Installation

The package is published on PyPI as mcp-icloud-caldav. With uv, MCP clients can start it directly, without a separate install step:

uvx mcp-icloud-caldav

uvx downloads the package into a cached, isolated environment on first use. To install it permanently instead: uv tool install mcp-icloud-caldav (or pipx install mcp-icloud-caldav).

From source:

git clone https://github.com/Glob0x17/mcp-icloud-caldav.git mcp-icloud-caldav
cd mcp-icloud-caldav
uv sync --no-dev
uv run mcp-icloud-caldav

Configuration

Credentials are read in this order:

  1. Environment variables (recommended)

    Variable Required Default
    ICLOUD_USERNAME yes
    ICLOUD_PASSWORD yes
    CALDAV_SERVER_URL no https://caldav.icloud.com/
  2. MCP_ICAL_CONFIG: path to a JSON file shaped like config.json.example

  3. config_private.json, then config.json, at the repository root (kept for compatibility)

Other settings:

Variable Default Effect
MCP_ICAL_READ_ONLY false true leaves out create_event, update_event and delete_event
MCP_ICAL_LOG_LEVEL INFO TRACE, DEBUG, INFO, WARNING or ERROR. Logs go to stderr

The server speaks MCP over stdio and is started by the client. To check it by hand:

ICLOUD_USERNAME=you@example.com ICLOUD_PASSWORD=xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx uvx mcp-icloud-caldav

It waits on stdin and prints nothing on stdout.

Client setup

Use the absolute path of uvx (which uvx) if the client cannot find it: clients often start servers without your shell PATH, which shows up as spawn uvx ENOENT. Usual locations:

Installed with Path
The uv installer (Linux, macOS) ~/.local/bin/uvx
Homebrew on Apple silicon /opt/homebrew/bin/uvx
Homebrew on Intel Macs /usr/local/bin/uvx

The command and its argument are separate fields: the command is uvx (or its path) and mcp-icloud-caldav is an argument. A config where the command is the single string "uvx mcp-icloud-caldav" fails with ENOENT, because the client looks for a program with that exact name, space included.

Keeping the password out of the client config

Most clients store env values in clear text in their config file. A small wrapper that reads an env file avoids that:

mkdir -p ~/.config/mcp-icloud-caldav && chmod 700 ~/.config/mcp-icloud-caldav
cat > ~/.config/mcp-icloud-caldav/env <<'EOF'
ICLOUD_USERNAME=you@example.com
ICLOUD_PASSWORD=xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx
MCP_ICAL_READ_ONLY=true
EOF
chmod 600 ~/.config/mcp-icloud-caldav/env

cat > ~/.local/bin/mcp-icloud-caldav-run <<'EOF'
#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail
set -a; source "$HOME/.config/mcp-icloud-caldav/env"; set +a
exec /absolute/path/to/uvx mcp-icloud-caldav
EOF
chmod +x ~/.local/bin/mcp-icloud-caldav-run

Then point the client at ~/.local/bin/mcp-icloud-caldav-run. Starting read-only and switching to false once reading works is a sensible first step.

Claude Desktop

In claude_desktop_config.json (Settings, Developer, Edit Config). On macOS it is ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "icloud-calendar": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["mcp-icloud-caldav"],
      "env": {
        "ICLOUD_USERNAME": "you@example.com",
        "ICLOUD_PASSWORD": "xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx"
      }
    }
  }
}

or, with the wrapper, "command": "/home/you/.local/bin/mcp-icloud-caldav-run" and no env. Quit Claude Desktop completely and start it again after editing. On macOS, server logs are in ~/Library/Logs/Claude/mcp-server-icloud-calendar.log.

Claude Code

claude mcp add --scope user icloud-calendar \
  -e ICLOUD_USERNAME=you@example.com -e ICLOUD_PASSWORD=xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx \
  -- uvx mcp-icloud-caldav

or, with the wrapper, claude mcp add --scope user icloud-calendar -- ~/.local/bin/mcp-icloud-caldav-run.

Do not quote what follows --: -- uvx mcp-icloud-caldav registers uvx as the command and mcp-icloud-caldav as its argument, while -- "uvx mcp-icloud-caldav" registers one program name and fails with ENOENT. To fix an existing entry, remove it with claude mcp remove icloud-calendar --scope user and add it again.

/mcp in a session shows the server state and its tools; claude mcp get icloud-calendar shows the registered command and arguments.

Other clients

Any MCP client that can start a stdio server works: run uvx mcp-icloud-caldav with the environment variables above. The server is also listed in the MCP Registry as io.github.Glob0x17/mcp-icloud-caldav.

Behavior worth knowing

  • Times. Event times are written in UTC. A time with an offset (2030-01-07T09:30:00+01:00) is converted, and a time without one is taken as the machine's local time. Times are shown back in the machine's timezone. All-day events are written as dates, with the end date exclusive as the iCalendar standard requires.
  • Moving between calendars. iCloud refuses the same event UID in two calendars, so a move cannot be "copy then delete". update_event with calendar_name uses a WebDAV MOVE, which is atomic on the server: if it fails, the event stays where it was. A move without other changes keeps the original iCalendar data untouched.
  • Finding events. Listings fill an in-memory index (UID to URL) that lives as long as the server process. Lookups then go straight to the event, falling back to the <calendar>/<UID>.ics URL iCloud uses for most events, and only then to a scan of all calendars. iCloud does not support CalDAV UID searches.
  • Volume. iCloud returns any number of events per request. The practical limit is the client: many cap a tool result at around 25,000 tokens, roughly 300 events in this server's output, so split long ranges.
  • Scope. Only calendars hosted on iCloud are visible. Exchange, Google or other accounts added to the Calendar app on a device are not reachable through iCloud CalDAV, and neither are read-only subscribed (ICS) calendars.

Privacy and security

  • The only network destination is the configured CalDAV server; there is no telemetry.
  • The password never appears in logs, at any level, nor in the configuration object's repr.
  • Logs go to stderr only, since stdout carries the MCP protocol. Event contents (titles, notes) are logged only at DEBUG or below; at INFO, only identifiers. Some clients save server stderr to disk, so keep DEBUG for troubleshooting.
  • Dependencies are locked in uv.lock and resolved from the official PyPI index only.

Troubleshooting

Symptom Likely cause
401 Unauthorized Regular Apple ID password instead of an app-specific one, or a revoked one
spawn uvx ENOENT or ENOENT uvx is not on the client's PATH (use its absolute path), or the command and its argument were registered as one string (see Client setup)
No events returned Wrong date range, an event in a non-iCloud or subscribed calendar, or a timezone mix-up
Server does not respond Something writes to stdout and breaks the stdio protocol
Calendar 'X' not found Calendar names are case-sensitive: check list_calendars

debug_calendar_connection and MCP_ICAL_LOG_LEVEL=DEBUG help narrow things down.

Development

uv sync
uv run pytest -m "not integration"   # unit tests, CalDAV client mocked, no network
uv run ruff check .

Integration tests run against a real account, read-only, and are skipped unless credentials are set:

ICLOUD_USERNAME=... ICLOUD_PASSWORD=... uv run pytest -m integration

Project layout:

mcp_icloud_caldav/
├── server.py          # MCP server, tool registration, logging setup
├── caldav_client.py   # CalDAV access: search, create, update, move, delete, event index
├── ical.py            # Thin calendar manager used by the server
├── models.py          # Event and request models, iCalendar parsing
└── config.py          # Configuration loading
tests/                 # Unit tests
tests/integration/     # Read-only tests against a real account

Changes in this fork

0.2.1: documentation only (uvx locations, ENOENT causes, client paths on macOS).

0.2.0, compared with zwrong/iCalendar 0.1.0:

  • Dependencies. Lockfile regenerated from the official PyPI index (it resolved packages through a third-party mirror over plain HTTP). Upgrade to mcp 2.x (FastMCP became MCPServer) and caldav 3.x; the original code no longer starts against current releases.
  • Configuration. Environment variables, MCP_ICAL_CONFIG, read-only mode, configurable log level, no event contents in logs above DEBUG.
  • Fixes.
    • Creating an event with a timezone offset failed (Unable to guess TZID); all-day events and recurrence end dates were written incorrectly.
    • Alarms were never read back.
    • Updating an event without a location, notes or URL failed; changing its time produced invalid iCalendar data.
    • Moving an event deleted it before saving the copy, so a failed save lost it.
    • New events got a UID containing spaces and the machine's hostname.
  • Behavior. Events sorted by start time, compact output without empty fields, in-memory event index.
  • Tests. Unit tests for configuration, read-only mode, logging, iCalendar output, moves and lookups.
  • Packaging. Published on PyPI as mcp-icloud-caldav and listed in the MCP Registry. The Python package and the command are renamed from mcp_ical / mcp-ical, which clashed with the original macOS project. The unused mcp[cli] extra was dropped.

Credits and license

MIT, see LICENSE.

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