How to Give Your AI Local File System Access with MCP
Z
Zack Saadioui
8/11/2025
Here's the thing about most AI right now: they're brilliant, but they're stuck in a box. They can write a poem, a piece of code, or a marketing plan, but they can't actually do anything with it. They can't save that poem to your documents folder, they can't run that code to see if it works, & they definitely can't file that marketing plan on your company's shared drive. It's like having a genius assistant who is paralyzed from the neck down.
But what if you could give that assistant hands? What if you could let it safely & securely interact with the files on your computer? That’s where things get REALLY interesting. We're talking about moving from a simple chatbot to a true AI agent—a partner that can organize your projects, analyze your data, & automate tedious, file-based tasks.
This isn't science fiction anymore. It's possible today thanks to something called the Model Context Protocol, or MCP. Honestly, it's one of the most exciting developments in AI right now because it's the key to unlocking the real potential of these models.
This guide is your step-by-step walkthrough for doing just that. We're going to dive deep into how you can use MCP tools to give your AI agent file system access. We'll cover what it is, why it’s a huge deal, how to set it up securely, & what you can do with it once you've opened the door.
Why Bother? What an AI with File Access Can Actually Do
Before we get into the nuts & bolts, let's talk about why this is such a game-changer. Giving an AI access to your file system isn't just about letting it save a text file. It's about enabling complex, multi-step workflows that were previously impossible.
Think about it:
The Automated Data Analyst: Imagine you have a folder full of weekly sales reports in CSV format. You could ask your AI agent, "Go through all the CSV files in the 'Q3 Sales' folder, consolidate the sales data for product X, & generate a summary report in a new Word document." The agent could then list the files, read each one, extract the relevant data, perform the calculation, & write the final report. No more manual data entry or copy-pasting.
The Developer's Sidekick: A developer could say, "Create a new project folder called 'WebApp'. Inside it, create a basic HTML file, a CSS file, & a JavaScript file. Add a standard header to the HTML & link the other two files." The AI could execute all these file operations instantly, setting up a project skeleton in seconds. It could even read existing code files to understand the project's context before writing new code.
The Ultimate Content Organizer: For marketers or writers, this is a dream. "Go through my 'Blog Drafts' folder, find all documents that mention 'AI in marketing', pull out the key statistics from each, & compile them into a new document called 'AI Stats Roundup'." The agent becomes a research assistant that can work with your local files.
Smarter Business Automation: This is where it gets really powerful for businesses. An AI could monitor a specific folder for new customer feedback forms. When a new file appears, it could open it, analyze the sentiment, summarize the feedback, & update a master spreadsheet—all automatically. This level of automation can save hundreds of hours.
This is also where solutions like Arsturn come into play. Many businesses have their knowledge locked away in documents—support manuals, product specs, FAQs, etc. Arsturn helps businesses build no-code AI chatbots trained on their own data. An AI with file system access is the foundational concept. Arsturn takes that power & makes it accessible, allowing you to create a custom AI that can instantly pull answers from your company's documents to provide 24/7 customer support, answer questions from website visitors, & even help with lead generation by providing personalized, context-aware information.
The Magic Connector: What is the Model Context Protocol (MCP)?
So how does this all work? The technology making this possible is the Model Context Protocol (MCP). It sounds technical, but the idea is pretty simple.
MCP is an open standard that acts as a secure bridge between an AI model & external tools. Think of it as a universal translator & a security guard rolled into one. It allows different AI clients (like the app you're chatting in) to talk to different tool servers (like a program that can access your files) in a standardized way.
It works on a client-server model:
The MCP Client: This is the AI application you're interacting with. Popular examples include the Claude Desktop app, Visual Studio Code with certain extensions, or custom agents you can build with Google's Agent Development Kit (ADK).
The MCP Server: This is a separate program that provides the actual tools. For our purposes, we're focused on the Filesystem MCP Server. This server is specifically designed to expose tools for file operations, like
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list_directory
,
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create_file
,
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read_file
,
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move_file
, etc.
The beauty of MCP is that it's not just for files. There's a whole ecosystem of servers for different tasks: connecting to databases, managing your Git repositories, interacting with Google Maps, sending emails, & so much more. But the file system is the perfect place to start because it's so universally useful.
Crucially, MCP is designed with security in mind. The AI can't just run wild on your computer. YOU are the one who configures which specific folders the agent is allowed to see, & for most actions, the client will pop up a confirmation asking for your explicit permission before anything happens.
The Main Event: A Step-by-Step Guide to Setting It Up
Alright, let's get our hands dirty. We're going to walk through setting up the Filesystem MCP server using the Claude Desktop app as our client, as it's one of the most straightforward ways to get started.
Step 1: Get Your Prerequisites in Order
Before you can build the bridge, you need to have the right materials on each side.
Install Claude Desktop: If you don't already have it, download & install the desktop application for your operating system. The web version won't work for this.
Install Node.js: The Filesystem MCP server, like many community-built MCP servers, is a Node.js package. You'll need to have Node.js installed. We recommend getting the LTS (Long Term Support) version from nodejs.org for stability. To check if you have it, open your terminal (Terminal on Mac, Command Prompt or PowerShell on Windows) & type
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node --version
. If you see a version number, you're good to go.
Step 2: Configure the MCP Server in Claude
This is the most important step. You need to tell the Claude app to start the Filesystem MCP server when it launches & which directories it's allowed to touch.
Open the Developer Config: In the Claude Desktop app, go to the application menu (on a Mac, this is in the top menu bar; on Windows, it might be behind a hamburger menu) & find
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Settings > Developer > Edit Config
. This will open a JSON file called
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claude_desktop_config.json
. This is where you define your MCP servers.
Add the Filesystem Server Configuration: The file might be empty or have some default text. You're going to add a JSON object that tells Claude how to run the server.