lharries/whatsapp-mcp

This is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for WhatsApp.
With this you can search and read your personal Whatsapp messages (including images, videos, documents, and audio messages), search your contacts and send messages to either individuals or groups. You can also send media files including images, videos, documents, and audio messages.
It connects to your **personal WhatsApp account** directly via the Whatsapp web multidevice API (using the whatsmeow library). All your messages are stored locally in a SQLite database and only sent to an LLM (such as Claude) when the agent accesses them through tools (which you control).
Here's an example of what you can do when it's connected to Claude.
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> *Caution:* as with many MCP servers, the WhatsApp MCP is subject to the lethal trifecta. This means that project injection could lead to private data exfiltration.
Installation
Prerequisites
- Go
- Python 3.6+
- Anthropic Claude Desktop app (or Cursor)
- UV (Python package manager), install with curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
- FFmpeg (_optional_) - Only needed for audio messages. If you want to send audio files as playable WhatsApp voice messages, they must be in .ogg Opus format. With FFmpeg installed, the MCP server will automatically convert non-Opus audio files. Without FFmpeg, you can still send raw audio files using the send_file tool.
Steps
1. **Clone this repository**
2. **Run the WhatsApp bridge**
Navigate to the whatsapp-bridge directory and run the Go application:
The first time you run it, you will be prompted to scan a QR code. Scan the QR code with your WhatsApp mobile app to authenticate.
After approximately 20 days, you will might need to re-authenticate.
3. **Connect to the MCP server**
Copy the below json with the appropriate {{PATH}} values:
For **Claude**, save this as claude_desktop_config.json in your Claude Desktop configuration directory at:
For **Cursor**, save this as mcp.json in your Cursor configuration directory at:
4. **Restart Claude Desktop / Cursor**
Open Claude Desktop and you should now see WhatsApp as an available integration.
Or restart Cursor.
Windows Compatibility
If you're running this project on Windows, be aware that go-sqlite3 requires **CGO to be enabled** in order to compile and work properly. By default, **CGO is disabled on Windows**, so you need to explicitly enable it and have a C compiler installed.
Steps to get it working:
1. **Install a C compiler**
We recommend using MSYS2 to install a C compiler for Windows. After installing MSYS2, make sure to add the ucrt64\bin folder to your PATH.
→ A step-by-step guide is available here.
2. **Enable CGO and run the app**
Without this setup, you'll likely run into errors like:
> Binary was compiled with 'CGO_ENABLED=0', go-sqlite3 requires cgo to work.
Architecture Overview
This application consists of two main components:
1. **Go WhatsApp Bridge** (whatsapp-bridge/): A Go application that connects to WhatsApp's web API, handles authentication via QR code, and stores message history in SQLite. It serves as the bridge between WhatsApp and the MCP server.
2. **Python MCP Server** (whatsapp-mcp-server/): A Python server implementing the Model Context Protocol (MCP), which provides standardized tools for Claude to interact with WhatsApp data and send/receive messages.
Data Storage
- All message history is stored in a SQLite database within the whatsapp-bridge/store/ directory