A long Claude conversation answers your question and then buries it. Forty replies in, the one branch worth keeping is somewhere above the fold, and the shape of what you worked out lives only in your head.
Connect mindmap.io and Claude puts that shape somewhere you can see it. Ask it to map a topic and a real map appears in your account: a root idea, questions hanging off it, an answer under each one, branches you can grow whenever you come back. Open it in the browser, keep exploring there, send someone the link.
You do not need to be technical to set this up. There is nothing to download and nothing to configure.
Add it in three steps
- In Claude, open Customize, then Connectors, then Add custom connector.
- Paste
https://mindmap.io/mcpinto the URL box and click Add. - A browser tab opens. Sign in to mindmap.io, choose how much access to give, and approve.
That is the whole install. Nothing to download, no file to edit, no key to copy from one place to another.
If you cannot find the Connectors screen, you can also reach it from a chat. Click the + button below the message box, hover over Connectors, and choose Manage connectors.
Claude Free, Pro, and Max can all add a connector by URL, so this needs no Team plan. On the Free plan you can keep one custom connector at a time.
On your computer and on your phone
Claude on the web and the Claude desktop app keep Connectors in the same place, so the three steps above are identical on both. Whichever one is in front of you, follow them as written.
On a phone, set this up on a computer first. Anthropic still describes adding a connector on iOS and Android as a beta, and the screens there may not match the ones above. Once the connector is added on the web or in the desktop app, it is already waiting for you the next time you open Claude on your phone, under the same account. Asking Claude to build a map then works on the phone exactly as it does anywhere else.
What you should see
Step three is the only part that leaves Claude, so here is what it looks like when it is going right.
A browser tab opens on mindmap.io and asks you to sign in. It is the same sign-in you use for the app. Once you are in, a screen appears naming mindmap.io and offering two choices, Full access and Read only. Pick one and approve, and the tab hands you back to Claude with the connector now listed and switched on.
Read only, or full access
That approval screen is the one real decision in this guide, and it is yours rather than a technical detail.
Read only lets Claude read the maps you already have and nothing else. It cannot create anything, change anything, publish anything, or spend anything. A read-only connection is never shown the tools that write, so Claude cannot reach for one by mistake.
Full access adds the rest: building new maps, editing and deleting them, asking questions inside a map, and publishing a map as a public link.
Full access is the default, because it is what makes “put this in a map” actually work. Choose read only for a first session if you would rather watch before you hand anything over, then reconnect with full access when you want Claude building.
Either way, you can disconnect from Claude’s connectors list whenever you want, and Claude loses access the moment you do.
Ask it for something
Try it with something you were about to ask Claude anyway:
Research how noise-cancelling headphones work, then build me a mindmap.io map with a branch for each mechanism and a question under each branch.
With full access, Claude can read the maps you already have, build new ones, ask a question inside a map and read the answer back into your conversation, fan a branch out into follow-up questions, and publish a finished map as a link you can send to anyone.
It draws on the plan you already have
When Claude asks a question inside one of your maps, it costs the same credits as asking it yourself in the app. The connector spends from that same balance rather than a separate one, so connecting it does not change what you pay. When the balance runs out, Claude tells you plainly instead of failing quietly.
Reading your maps costs nothing at all.
If you write code
In Claude Code, claude mcp add --transport http mindmapio https://mindmap.io/mcp sets up the same connection. For any agent that cannot sign in through a browser, the agent install guide covers the access token route and the API underneath both.
Start with one map
Add the connector, pick read only or full access, and ask Claude to map the next thing you were going to research. Open mindmap.io when it is done and grow the branch it left you.