How to use the Readwise MCP tools — access highlights, documents, and your entire reading library via MCP

Readwise MCP Use the Readwise MCP tools to access the user's Readwise highlights and Reader documents. Readwise has two products: Readwise — highlights from books, articles, podcasts, and more. Includes daily review and spaced repetition. Reader — a read later app for saving and reading articles, PDFs, EPUBs, RSS feeds, emails, tweets, and videos. Setup Add the Readwise MCP server to your client's configuration: The server handles authentication via OAuth — the user will be prompted to authorize on first use. Tool Reference All tools are prefixed with mcp readwise . Each tool name maps directly to a Readwise or Reader API action. Reader Tools Searching documents Hybrid search (semantic + keyword) across all saved documents. Combine with filters to narrow results: Other filters: title search , summary search , note search , url search , source search , document id , limit (default 20, max 100). Browsing documents Locations: new (inbox), later , shortlist , archive , feed . When the user says "inbox", use new . Only use feed when the user explicitly asks about RSS/feeds. Use response fields to limit returned data and save tokens. The id field is always included. Available fields: url , title , author , source , category , location , tags , site name , word count , reading time , created at , updated at , published date , summary , image url , content , source url , notes , parent id , reading progress , first opened at , last opened at , saved at , last moved at , html content , is deleted . Tip: unseen documents have first opened at=null . Mark as seen via reader bulk edit document metadata . Reading and highlighting Saving documents Organizing Note: reader move documents and reader bulk edit document metadata share a rate limit of 20 calls/minute. Batch document IDs into fewer calls. Tags Exporting Poll reader get export documents status until status is "completed" , then use the download url . Readwise Tools Searching highlights Full text query fields: document author , document title , highlight note , highlight plaintext , highlight tags . Browsing highlights Creating and editing highlights Colors: yellow , blue , pink , orange , green , purple . Daily review Returns highlights selected by the algorithm plus a URL for interactive review. Example Workflows Triage the inbox: List recent saves, read each one, decide what's worth the user's time. Search across everything: Find all content on a topic — run both in parallel. Quiz on a recent read: Find a finished document, get its content and highlights. Catch up on RSS: Browse feed items, surface the best ones, mark the rest as seen. Save and annotate: Save a URL, highlight key passages, tag and organize. Build a reading recap: See what you've finished and highlighted recently.

readwise-mcp