quicken-mac-mcp

A Claude Skill + MCP server that gives Claude read-only access to your Quicken For Mac financial data. Ask Claude about your accounts, transactions, spending by category, monthly trends, investment holdings, and more.

The database is always opened read-only — your Quicken data is never modified.

Skill or MCP — which do I want?

This repo ships two artifacts that share the same schema knowledge (docs/schema.md):

• Skill (plugin/skills/quicken/SKILL.md) — teaches Claude to read the Quicken SQLite database directly with the sqlite3 CLI. Works in Claude Code and any other Claude surface that loads skills. No native module install, no MCP server process — just SQL. This is the recommended path.
• MCP server — wraps the same SQL recipes as eight prepackaged tools (list_accounts, query_transactions, spending_by_category, …). Use it when you're working in a non-Claude MCP client (Cursor, Cline, mcp-remote bridges) that can't load skills, or when you'd rather call typed tools than have Claude write SQL.

The Claude Code plugin install (claude plugin install quicken-mac-mcp) bundles both, with the skill leading and the MCP tools available as shortcuts.

Requirements

Quicken For Mac must be open while using either the skill or the MCP. Quicken encrypts its database file when the app is closed — the data is only readable while Quicken is running.

How it works

Quicken For Mac stores data in a Core Data SQLite database inside a .quicken bundle in your Documents folder (e.g., ~/Documents/MyFinances.quicken/data). The skill teaches Claude how to query that database directly; the MCP server is a thin wrapper that exposes eight prepackaged queries as tools.

Install — recommended (Claude Code, plugin)

claude plugin install quicken-mac-mcp

This installs both the /quicken skill (recommended path) and the MCP server. Claude will lead with the skill and fall back to the MCP tools when convenient.

Install — MCP-only paths

Use these if you're in a non-Claude-Code client that can't load skills, or you only want the typed-tool wrapper.

Claude Code (MCP only)

claude mcp add quicken -- npx -y quicken-mac-mcp

Claude Desktop (MCPB drag-and-drop)

Download quicken-mac-mcp.mcpb from the latest GitHub release and drag it into Claude Desktop. It will prompt you for your database path (or auto-detect it).

Claude Desktop (manual JSON)

Add to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "quicken": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "quicken-mac-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop and you'll see a hammer icon with 8 tools available.

Custom database path

If you have multiple Quicken files, or your .quicken bundle isn't in ~/Documents, set the QUICKEN_DB_PATH environment variable:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "quicken": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "quicken-mac-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "QUICKEN_DB_PATH": "/path/to/YourFile.quicken/data"
      }
    }
  }
}

By default, the server auto-detects your Quicken database by picking the most recently modified .quicken bundle in ~/Documents.

MCP tools

These are the eight prepackaged tools the MCP server exposes. The skill covers the same ground (and more) by writing SQL directly against the database — see plugin/skills/quicken/SKILL.md.

Tool	Description
list_accounts	List all accounts with name, type, and active/closed status. Optional type filter.
list_categories	List all category tags with parent hierarchy. Filter by expense/income.
query_transactions	Query transactions with filters: date range, account types/names, amount range, payee search, category. Returns one row per split entry, with note (transaction-level) and split_note (per-split) memos.
spending_by_category	Aggregate spending by category or parent category for a date range.
spending_over_time	Monthly spending totals, optionally broken down by category.
search_payees	Search payees by name with transaction counts.
list_portfolio	List investment holdings with shares, cost basis, and stored Quicken price quotes.
raw_query	Run arbitrary SELECT queries (500-row limit).

Self-Documenting Command-Line Interface (qmac)

This project includes a fully featured, self-documenting command-line interface qmac that allows you to query your Quicken SQLite database directly from the terminal without going through an MCP client.

Features:

• Centralized Schema Validation: Arguments are dynamically coerced to correct types (numbers, booleans, arrays) and validated.
• Subcommand Help (--help / -h): Easily inspect parameter descriptions and types for any subcommand (e.g. qmac spending-by-category --help).
• Syntax Error Auto-Help: Providing incorrect syntax or missing required fields outputs a precise error message along with the subcommand's help page.
• Integrated Manual (qmac man): Renders the complete, stylized UNIX man page guide right in your shell.
• Premium ASCII Table Layout: Columns are dynamically auto-sized, numbers are right-aligned, and headers are formatted for supreme clarity. Use --json to get raw data for scripting.

Example Commands:

# General help
qmac --help

# Render stylized manual page
qmac man

# List checking accounts
qmac list-accounts --account-type checking

# Find Costco transactions over $100 in 2024
qmac query-transactions --start-date 2024-01-01 --end-date 2024-12-31 --payee-search costco --max-amount -100

# Get subcategory spending breakdown for Q1 2025
qmac spending-by-category --start-date 2025-01-01 --end-date 2025-03-31 --group-by category

# Display investment portfolio holding valuations
qmac list-portfolio

Example prompts

• "List my accounts"
• "What did I spend on groceries last month?"
• "Show my spending by category for 2024"
• "How has my monthly spending changed over the past year?"
• "Find all transactions from Costco over $100"
• "What are my top 10 payees by transaction count?"
• "Compare my food spending in 2024 vs 2025"

Sovereign Financial Exporter (CSV & relational schema.json)

Want to move your complete personal financial history out of Quicken to your own sovereign, self-hosted, or custom agentic analysis platform?

This project includes a high-speed, zero-dependency, pure Python utility scripts/export_sovereign_csv.py that connects to your unlocked Quicken database and extracts it into a cleanly normalized, portable package.

How to use the exporter:

1. Open your Quicken For Mac application and log in so that the database is decrypted.
2. In your terminal, execute the export script:

   python3 scripts/export_sovereign_csv.py
   

3. A new directory quicken_sovereign_export/ will be generated, containing:
   • accounts.csv: Beautifully normalized accounts list (checking, credit, brokerage, retirement, etc.).
   • categories.csv: Income & expense category path structure.
   • payees.csv: Registered merchant names list.
   • transactions.csv: Top-level ledger with post-date, notes, and transaction-level details.
   • transaction_splits.csv: Line-item splits showing amounts and category IDs.
   • holdings.csv: Active investment holdings reconstructed from your individual tax lots with cost basis and unrealized returns.
   • tags.csv: Custom user tags mapped directly to splits.
   • schema.json: Complete relational column and foreign key reference dictionary.
   • README.md: A detailed migration guide demonstrating how to load and query your financial history instantly in DuckDB, Pandas, PostgreSQL, or other databases.

This allows other agentic platforms (like custom GPTs, self-hosted LLMs, or sovereign database agents) to immediately parse, ingest, and analyze your entire financial history.

---

Database schema

Quicken For Mac uses Core Data with these key tables:

Table	Purpose
ZACCOUNT	Bank accounts, credit cards, investment accounts
ZTRANSACTION	Individual transactions (with ZNOTE transaction-level memo)
ZCASHFLOWTRANSACTIONENTRY	Split line items — categories AND per-split ZNOTE memos live here
ZTAG	Category tags with parent hierarchy (Z_ENT looked up at runtime)
ZUSERPAYEE	Payee names

Dates use Core Data epoch (seconds since 2001-01-01). The MCP server handles all date conversion automatically — you pass ISO 8601 dates, it returns ISO 8601 dates. The skill recipes show the conversion (+ 978307200) inline so Claude can write SQL directly.

Account types are stored as uppercase strings: CHECKING, CREDITCARD, SAVINGS, MORTGAGE, RETIREMENTIRA, ASSET, LIABILITY, LOAN, etc. The tools accept any casing.

For the full schema reference (84 entities, all tables, indexes, foreign keys, and Core Data write semantics including Z_OPT optimistic locking), see docs/schema.md.

Development

git clone https://github.com/dweekly/quicken-mac-mcp.git
cd quicken-mac-mcp
npm install
npm test          # run tests
npm run lint      # eslint
npm run format    # prettier
npm run dev       # run server locally

Docker

docker build -t quicken-mac-mcp .
docker run --rm -v ~/Documents/YourFile.quicken:/data:ro quicken-mac-mcp

Contributors

• Manish Mukherjee — fixed dynamic Z_ENT lookup for CategoryTag (#4), added account_names filter and date fallback for imported transactions (#5)
• Als-Pal — Quicken ↔ Amazon order matcher gist surfaced that notes live at two levels (ZTRANSACTION.ZNOTE and ZCASHFLOWTRANSACTIONENTRY.ZNOTE) and documented the Z_OPT write-back semantics now in docs/schema.md.

Disclaimer

This project is an independent, community-developed open-source tool. It is not an official Intuit product and is not endorsed by, directly affiliated with, maintained by, or sponsored by Intuit Inc. or any of its subsidiaries. "Quicken" is a registered trademark of Intuit Inc. All product and company names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. Use of them does not imply any affiliation with or endorsement by them.

This software is provided "as is," without warranty of any kind. The authors and contributors are not responsible for any damage, data loss, or other issues arising from its use. Always back up your financial data before using third-party tools.

License

MIT