How to add Fetch MCP Server to Claude Desktop

Fetch web content as HTML, JSON, text, Markdown, readable article, or YouTube transcript. Paste the config into ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json and restart Claude Desktop.

Last updated June 14, 2026 · 784★ · stdio · no auth

Claude Desktop config for Fetch MCP Server

npm install -g mcp-fetch-server

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fetch-mcp-server": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "mcp-fetch-server"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Setup steps

1Open Claude Desktop → Settings → Developer → Edit Config (this opens ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json).
2Paste the Fetch MCP Server config below under the top-level "mcpServers" key.
3Fill in any placeholder secrets (API keys, paths) in the snippet.
4Save the file, then fully quit and reopen Claude Desktop.
5Open a chat and confirm Fetch MCP Server's tools appear under the 🔌 tools menu.

Before you start

Node.js with npx (to run mcp-fetch-server), or global install via npm install -g mcp-fetch-server
Optional: yt-dlp installed for richer YouTube transcript extraction (falls back to direct page extraction)

What Fetch MCP Server can do in Claude Desktop

fetch_html

Fetch a website and return its raw HTML content.

fetch_markdown

Fetch a website and return its content converted to Markdown.

fetch_txt

Fetch a website and return plain text with HTML tags, scripts, and styles removed.

fetch_json

Fetch a URL and return the JSON response.

fetch_readable

Fetch a website and extract the main article content using Mozilla Readability, returned as Markdown. Strips navigation, ads, and boilerplate. Ideal for articles and blog posts.

fetch_youtube_transcript

Fetch a YouTube video's captions/transcript. Uses yt-dlp if available, otherwise extracts directly from the page. Accepts a lang parameter (default 'en') to select the caption language.

Security

Includes SSRF protection that blocks private/localhost addresses and DNS rebinding, plus a response body size limit (MAX_RESPONSE_BYTES, default 10 MB) to prevent memory exhaustion.

Fetch MCP Server + Claude Desktop FAQ

Where is the Claude Desktop config file?

Claude Desktop reads MCP servers from ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json. Paste the Fetch MCP Server config there under the "mcpServers" key and restart the client.

Is Fetch MCP Server safe to use with Claude Desktop?

Includes SSRF protection that blocks private/localhost addresses and DNS rebinding, plus a response body size limit (MAX_RESPONSE_BYTES, default 10 MB) to prevent memory exhaustion.

How do I limit the size of fetched content?

Use the max_length parameter (default 5000 characters) and start_index (default 0) to paginate, or set the DEFAULT_LIMIT env var (set to 0 for no limit). MAX_RESPONSE_BYTES caps the raw response body size (default 10 MB).

Can I fetch through a proxy or with custom headers?

Yes. Every tool accepts an optional proxy URL (e.g. http://proxy:8080) and a headers object for custom request headers.

Does it protect against SSRF?

Yes. The server blocks requests to private/localhost addresses and guards against DNS rebinding, and limits response body size to prevent memory exhaustion.

View repo Full Fetch MCP Server page