The Perplexity app for macOS lets you trigger a keyboard shortcut to instantly bring up the prompt field for a search. And now, it’s getting even more useful thanks to the addition of MCP support. Here’s what that means, and why you should look into it.
What’s MCP again?
MCP, or Model Context Protocol, was proposed by Anthropic and is quickly becoming the industry’s standard interface between AI systems and traditional platforms. In a nutshell, it wants to be the AI equivalent of what HTTP is to the web, or SMTP is to email.
Since its announcement, MCP has been widely adopted by companies and platforms like Zapier, Google, and Salesforce, and the result is a universal pathway for AI assistants to plug into APIs and data sources.
So Perplexity now supports MCP?
Yes, Perplexity’s Mac app now supports MCP, which means you’ll be able to plug into and use many everyday apps through the Perplexity interface.
For instance, you’ll be able to use Perplexity to search and edit your Apple Notes, create reminders, send emails, pull data from Google Drive files, etc.
But there’s a catch: since Mac App Store apps are sandboxed, you’ll need to install the Perplexity Helper App to make it work.
Here’s the step-by-step, as provided by the company:
Open your account settings and click on Connectors Before you can add MCP Connectors, you have to install the helper application PerplexityXPC so that Perplexity can securely connect to your local MCP servers. Once the Helper is installed, go back to the Connectors settings and click Add Connector On the “Add Connector” page, add an MCP Connector to the “Simple” tab a. Add any name for “Server Name”, for example MCP for AppleScript
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