mpv-mcp-server

MCP server for controlling mpv media player. Browse your music library, control playback, stream from YouTube, and download tracks — all from inside an MCP client like Claude Code.

Prerequisites

• mpv — media player (must be on your PATH, or set MPV_PATH)
• Node.js 22+
• yt-dlp (optional) — required for YouTube streaming and downloading
• ffmpeg (optional) — required for audio extraction, metadata reading (ffprobe), and tagging

Quick Start

Claude Code

Add to your project's .mcp.json:

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

Or add at user scope (available in all projects):

claude mcp add mpv --scope user -- npx -y mpv-mcp-server

Claude Desktop

Add to your Claude Desktop config:

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

With environment overrides

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mpv": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mpv-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "MPV_PATH": "/usr/local/bin/mpv",
        "MPV_MEDIA_DIRS": "/home/user/Music,/home/user/Podcasts",
        "MPV_DOWNLOAD_DIR": "/home/user/Music"
      }
    }
  }
}

Configuration

All configuration is via environment variables. Everything has sensible defaults.

Variable	Default	Description
MPV_PATH	mpv	Path to mpv executable
MPV_IPC_PATH	\\.\pipe\mpvpipe (Windows) or /tmp/mpv-ipc.sock (Unix)	IPC socket path
MPV_MEDIA_DIRS	~/Music,~/Videos	Comma-separated media directories to scan
MPV_DOWNLOAD_DIR	~/Downloads	Where downloaded files are saved

Tools

Playback

Tool	Description
mpv_play	Play a file by path or search term
mpv_pause	Pause playback
mpv_resume	Resume playback
mpv_stop	Stop playback
mpv_status	Get current playback status
mpv_seek	Seek to position ("90", "1:30", "+10", "-30")
mpv_volume	Get or set volume (0-150)

Library

Tool	Description
mpv_browse	List and search available media files
mpv_playlist	Show current playlist
mpv_add	Add a track to the playlist
mpv_load_playlist	Load a playlist file (.m3u, .pls, .txt)
mpv_next	Skip to next track
mpv_prev	Go to previous track

YouTube

Tool	Description
mpv_youtube	Search YouTube and stream through mpv (supports append mode)
mpv_download	Download from YouTube (audio or video)

YouTube tools require yt-dlp on your PATH. Audio downloads also require ffmpeg.

Metadata

Tool	Description
mpv_info	Get metadata for the current track or any file by search term
mpv_tag	Write metadata tags (artist, title, album, genre, date, comment) to a file

Both tools infer artist/title from the "Artist - Title" filename pattern. Requires ffmpeg (includes ffprobe).

How It Works

The server communicates with mpv via its JSON IPC protocol. On Windows this uses a named pipe, on macOS/Linux a Unix domain socket. If mpv isn't running, the server spawns it automatically in idle mode. The mpv process is detached, so it keeps playing even if the MCP server exits.

Platform Support

Developed and tested on Windows. macOS/Linux support is implemented but untested — issues and PRs welcome!

License

MIT