Home/MCP

URL to Markdown MCP server

Install the Apify MCP server in Claude Desktop or Claude Code, and ask Claude to convert any URL to Markdown directly from a chat - no glue code, no scripts, no copy-paste.

What is MCP?

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard for connecting LLM clients (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, and others) to external tools and data. The Apify MCP server exposes the entire Apify Actor library - including the URL to Markdown Actor - to your AI assistant as callable tools.

Once installed, you can simply ask: "Convert https://example.com/article to clean markdown" and Claude will call the Actor and hand back the Markdown.

Prerequisites

Install on Claude Desktop

  1. Open the Claude Desktop config

    Settings → Developer → "Edit Config". This opens claude_desktop_config.json.

  2. Add the Apify MCP server

    Add or merge the following mcpServers entry, replacing YOUR_APIFY_API_TOKEN:

json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "mcp-remote",
        "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=apify/url-to-markdown",
        "--header",
        "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_APIFY_API_TOKEN"
      ]
    }
  }
}

  1. Restart Claude Desktop

    You should see "apify" listed under available MCP servers and a tool icon in the chat input.

  2. Try it

    Open a new chat and prompt:

prompt
Use the Apify URL to Markdown Actor to convert
https://docs.apify.com/academy/scraping-basics-javascript
into clean Markdown. Return the markdown only.

Install on Claude Code

Claude Code has a one-line install for MCP servers. From your terminal:

bash
claude mcp add apify \
  --transport http \
  "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=apify/url-to-markdown" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_APIFY_API_TOKEN"

Then start Claude Code (claude) and run /mcp to verify the server is connected. Now ask Claude:

prompt
Convert https://example.com/blog/post to markdown using
the Apify URL to Markdown Actor.
Return only the markdown.

Useful prompt patterns

Single URL → markdown file

Convert https://example.com/article to markdown
and save it to ./article.md.

Bulk conversion

Here are 12 URLs. Convert each one to markdown
using the Apify URL to Markdown Actor, then save
them as numbered files in ./out/.

Whole-site dump for RAG

URL to Markdown converts one page at a time. To crawl and convert an entire site, ask Claude to use the Website Content Crawler instead:

Use the Apify Website Content Crawler to crawl
https://docs.example.com/ down to depth 3, save markdown
for every page into ./docs/, and produce a sitemap.json
mapping URLs to file paths.

Pricing

MCP is free to install. You only pay for Apify platform usage when the Actor runs - and the Apify free plan includes $5 of usage every month (no credit card required), which is enough for well over a thousand single-URL conversions.

Troubleshooting

Claude says "no Apify tools available"

Check that your Apify API token is set in the Authorization: Bearer header in your MCP config and that you fully restarted Claude Desktop / Claude Code. Tokens can be re-issued from the Apify integrations page.

The conversion is slow

The default raw-http mode is fast. If a page needs JavaScript, ask Claude to run it with scrapingTool: "browser-playwright" - that renders the page in a real browser, which is slower but handles JS-heavy sites.

I want to call this from a script, not Claude

Use the REST API or apify-client SDK instead - same Actor, same input.

References