Excel

You can run an MCP server that manipulates Excel workbooks without installing Microsoft Excel. This server exposes a set of Excel operations you can invoke from your AI agent, including creating workbooks, reading data, applying formulas, formatting, charts, and pivot tables. It supports multiple transport methods so you can run locally or connect remotely.

How to use

You interact with the Excel MCP Server through an MCP client. Choose the transport that fits your deployment: local stdio for development, SSE forServer-Sent Events (deprecated), or streamable HTTP for remote connections. Start the server with the chosen transport, then connect your client to the provided endpoint. Use the available tools to create, read, update, and manage Excel workbooks, worksheets, tables, charts, and pivot tables. You can also control formatting, validations, and data integrity across your spreadsheets.

How to install

Prerequisites: ensure you have a runtime environment available for MCP servers. You will use the dedicated MCP transport commands to run the server in different modes. The commands shown below start the server in each transport mode. Choose the one that matches your deployment scenario.

uvx excel-mcp-server stdio

{
   "mcpServers": {
      "excel": {
         "command": "uvx",
         "args": ["excel-mcp-server", "stdio"]
      }
   }
}

For remote connections, you can use the SSE transport (deprecated) or the streamable HTTP transport. The exact commands are shown below.

uvx excel-mcp-server sse

{
   "mcpServers": {
      "excel": {
         "url": "http://localhost:8000/sse",
      }
   }
}

To enable remote access via streamable HTTP, use this command and endpoint:

uvx excel-mcp-server streamable-http

{
   "mcpServers": {
      "excel": {
         "url": "http://localhost:8000/mcp",
      }
   }
}

Additional setup and environment considerations

If you are using the SSE or Streamable HTTP transports, you must set an environment variable to tell the server where to read and write Excel files.

Set EXCEL_FILES_PATH to point to your Excel file directory. If you do not set it, the default is ./excel_files.

You can also specify the port the server listens on with FASTMCP_PORT. The default is 8017 if you do not set it.

Example for Windows PowerShell:

$env:EXCEL_FILES_PATH="E:\MyExcelFiles"
$env:FASTMCP_PORT="8007"
uvx excel-mcp-server streamable-http

Example for Linux or macOS:

EXCEL_FILES_PATH=/path/to/excel_files FASTMCP_PORT=8007 uvx excel-mcp-server streamable-http

Security and access notes

If you run the server remotely, protect the HTTP endpoint with appropriate network controls and authentication as required by your deployment.