MCP Tools Reference: drivemcp.googleapis.com

Tool: read_file_content

Call this tool to fetch a natural language representation of a Drive file, and optionally, its comments.

The file content may be incomplete for very large files. The text representation will change over time, so don't make assumptions about the particular format of the text returned by this tool. If supported, comment tags will be included in the content.

Supported Mime Types:

  • application/vnd.google-apps.document
  • application/vnd.google-apps.presentation
  • application/vnd.google-apps.spreadsheet
  • application/pdf
  • application/msword
  • application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
  • application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet
  • application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation
  • application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.spreadsheet
  • application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.presentation
  • application/x-vnd.oasis.opendocument.text
  • image/png
  • image/jpeg
  • image/jpg

If the file is not found, try using other tools like search_files to find the file the user is requesting using keywords.

The following sample demonstrate how to use curl to invoke the read_file_content MCP tool.

Curl Request 
curl --location 'https://drivemcp.googleapis.com/mcp/v1' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN' \
--header 'content-type: application/json' \
--header 'accept: application/json, text/event-stream' \
--data '{
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "read_file_content",
    "arguments": {
      // provide these details according to the tool's MCP specification
    }
  },
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1
}'

Input Schema

Request to read file content with support for fetching comments.

ReadFileContentRequest

JSON representation 
{
  "fileId": string,
  "includeComments": boolean
}
Fields
fileId

string

Required. The ID of the file to retrieve.
includeComments

boolean

Whether to include comments in the response. Comments will be inlined in the text content of the file with a mapping to the comment threads.

Output Schema

Response to read file content.

ReadFileContentResponse

JSON representation 
{
  "contentAnchoredComments": [
    {
      object (CommentThread)
    }
  ],
  "unanchoredComments": [
    {
      object (CommentThread)
    }
  ],

  "fileContent": string

  "textFormattingNotSupported": boolean
  // End of list of possible types for union field
  // _text_formatting_not_supported.

  "commentsNotSupported": boolean
}
Fields
contentAnchoredComments[]

object (CommentThread)

Comment threads referenced in the returned file_content.
unanchoredComments[]

object (CommentThread)

Comment threads that could not be anchored to specific content in the returned file.

Union field _file_content.

_file_content can be only one of the following:
fileContent

string

Drive file content returned in text format. May be empty if the file is not supported for text formatting. Can include comment references if include_comments is true in the request.

Union field _text_formatting_not_supported.

_text_formatting_not_supported can be only one of the following:
textFormattingNotSupported

boolean

Whether text formatting is supported for this file. If true, file_content will be empty.

Union field _comments_not_supported.

_comments_not_supported can be only one of the following:
commentsNotSupported

boolean

Whether returning comments is supported for this file. Only present if include_comments is true in the request and comments are not supported.

CommentThread

JSON representation 
{
  "replies": [
    {
      object (Post)
    }
  ],

  "commentId": string

  "status": enum (Status)

  "headPost": {
    object (Post)
  }
}
Fields
replies[]

object (Post)

The replies to the first post in the comment thread.

Union field _comment_id.

_comment_id can be only one of the following:
commentId

string

The id of the comment thread. This is the same id as the initial comment.

Union field _status.

_status can be only one of the following:
status

enum (Status)

The status of the comment thread.

Union field _head_post.

_head_post can be only one of the following:
headPost

object (Post)

The first post in the comment thread.

Post

JSON representation 
{

  "postId": string

  "content": string

  "authorName": string

  "modifiedTime": string
}
Fields

Union field _post_id.

_post_id can be only one of the following:
postId

string

The id of the post.

Union field _content.

_content can be only one of the following:
content

string

The content of the post.

Union field _author_name.

_author_name can be only one of the following:
authorName

string

The name of the author of the post.

Union field _modified_time.

_modified_time can be only one of the following:
modifiedTime

string (Timestamp format)

The time that the post was last modified.

Uses RFC 3339, where generated output will always be Z-normalized and use 0, 3, 6 or 9 fractional digits. Offsets other than "Z" are also accepted. Examples: "2014-10-02T15:01:23Z", "2014-10-02T15:01:23.045123456Z" or "2014-10-02T15:01:23+05:30".

Timestamp

JSON representation 
{
  "seconds": string,
  "nanos": integer
}
Fields
seconds

string (int64 format)

Represents seconds of UTC time since Unix epoch 1970-01-01T00:00:00Z. Must be between -62135596800 and 253402300799 inclusive (which corresponds to 0001-01-01T00:00:00Z to 9999-12-31T23:59:59Z).
nanos

integer

Non-negative fractions of a second at nanosecond resolution. This field is the nanosecond portion of the duration, not an alternative to seconds. Negative second values with fractions must still have non-negative nanos values that count forward in time. Must be between 0 and 999,999,999 inclusive.

Status

Defines the status of a comment thread.

Enums
STATUS_UNSPECIFIED
OPEN
RESOLVED

Tool Annotations

Destructive Hint: ❌ | Idempotent Hint: ✅ | Read Only Hint: ✅ | Open World Hint: ❌

Authorization Scopes

Requires one of the following OAuth scopes:

  • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive
  • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.appdata
  • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file
  • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.meet.readonly
  • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.metadata
  • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.metadata.readonly
  • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.photos.readonly
  • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.readonly