Outerline Outerline

Claude Connector

The Outerline for Mac Claude Connector connects your Outerline library to Claude Desktop in one click. Once installed, Claude can read, search, create, and edit your markdown notes directly in conversation — no manual configuration required.

Requirements

Installation

The connector is bundled with Outerline. From the menu bar, choose Help → Advanced → Install Claude Connector. Claude Desktop will open and show an installation prompt.

  1. Review the permissions and click Install.
  2. That's it. Claude Desktop will handle the rest, including launching the MCP server in the background whenever you start a conversation.

What the Connector Does

The connector installs Outerline's MCP server as a Claude Desktop Extension. Once connected, Claude can use the following capabilities directly in your conversations:

  • Read notes from your library by path or title
  • Search across all documents by keyword or tag
  • Create new notes and append to existing ones
  • Create empty folders and missing parents with create_folder
  • Rename or move a folder, or both, with edit_folder, preserving its contents and stable links
  • Edit documents, replace sections, or rewrite content
  • Set or clear custom display titles, and manage tags, tag colors, and stars
  • Inspect outlines, backlinks, links, highlights, notes, and selected-text comments
  • Create comments anchored to exact selected text and copy stable links back to them
  • Browse and restore version history snapshots
  • Generate outerline:// deep links to documents, headings, and lines
  • Read the document and text selection you currently have open in Outerline

For a full reference of every available tool, see the MCP Guide.

Example Workflows

Once the connector is installed, you can talk to Claude about your notes the same way you would about anything else. A few ideas to get started:

The "What was I thinking?"

Prompt: "Look at my Outerline notes from the last week and give me a quick summary of what I've been working on."

Great for Monday mornings or after time away from a project.

The "Journal Companion"

Prompt: "I want to reflect on today. Ask me a few questions, then append my answers to my Journal/2026 note under today's date."

Turns Claude into a gentle journaling prompt without leaving the conversation.

The "Recipe Rescue"

Prompt: "Find the pasta recipe I saved a few months ago — I think it had anchovies in it — and pull up the ingredient list."

Search across your library by vague memory instead of exact filenames.

The "Reading Roundup"

Prompt: "Look at all my notes tagged #book and tell me which themes keep coming up across what I've been reading this year."

A book club for one, powered by your own highlights and notes.

The "Idea Connector"

Prompt: "Look at the note I have open and find anything else in my library that touches the same ideas. Give me a short list with one line each on why they're related."

Surfaces forgotten notes you'd never think to search for.

The "Trip Planner"

Prompt: "I'm going to Lisbon next month. Pull together everything in my Outerline library that mentions Lisbon or Portugal — restaurant tips, things to do, anything friends sent me — into a single trip note."

Stitches scattered notes into one ready-to-pack document.

The "Inbox Sorter"

Prompt: "My Inbox note has gotten messy. Read through it and suggest where each item should live in my library — and create the new notes if I say go."

Helps you keep a quick-capture habit without the cleanup guilt.

The "Time Capsule"

Prompt: "Find the earliest version of my Goals/2026 note and tell me what's changed since I first wrote it."

Uses version history to reflect on how your thinking has evolved.

The "Lost Paragraph"

Prompt: "I had a paragraph in my novel chapter about a thunderstorm — I think I deleted it last week. Can you find it and show it to me?"

Recover writing you cut and later wished you hadn't.

The "Marketing Scout"

Prompt: "Read my Release Notes draft and highlight in green any feature that would make a good user-facing post. Highlight in pink anything that's too technical to lead with. Add a short note on each green highlight suggesting an angle I could post about."

A creative use of color-coded highlights and notes — Claude marks up the document directly so you can scan it back in Outerline and pick what to write about.

Your Data

Your library remains in its chosen folder, locally or synced by your storage provider. The connector runs on your Mac and does not send notes to Outerline's servers. The connected AI client can request note content through MCP, and that content may be processed by its AI service under your client permissions and that service's privacy policy. See the MCP Integration section of our Privacy Policy before connecting a client.

For more on how Claude Desktop handles local MCP servers, see the Claude Help Center.

About the .mcpb Format

The Outerline .mcpb contains the connector manifest and a small launcher that runs the MCP helper inside /Applications/Outerline.app. It does not contain a second copy of the helper. Updating Outerline updates the helper used by the connector; restart the MCP client to pick up that version.

Installing the bundled connector does not require Node.js or manual configuration files. Keep Outerline installed in /Applications so the launcher can find its helper.

For more on the format, see Anthropic's Desktop Extensions overview.

Using Outerline with Claude Code

The Claude Connector is for Claude Desktop only. Claude Code and other MCP-compatible clients can launch the same built-in helper directly. See the MCP Guide for setup instructions.

Troubleshooting

Claude doesn't seem to know about my notes

Open Outerline and select the intended library. A library in a user-selected folder requires the app to remain open. Most vault tools can use the selected Outerline iCloud library while the app is closed; live-editor tools always need the app. If Claude reports it cannot find the Outerline tool, try restarting Claude Desktop.

Claude Desktop doesn't open when I click Install

Make sure you have Claude Desktop installed and have launched it at least once so macOS recognizes it as the handler for .mcpb files.

I need to uninstall the connector

Open Claude Desktop, go to Settings → Extensions, find the Outerline connector, and click Remove.