The ability to hook into a database of components as well as use the current ‘bunch of files’ approach would be an extremely useful feature but is not directly supported at the moment. However there is a project in github which might be of interest.
I have not had much success with it on macOs in the past but there have been some more recent updates so it might be worth a look.
According to the author
With kipartman you will be able to:
* Organize and manage your team parts inside a part database
* Group equivalent parts to allow easy parts replacement
* Manage your part stock
* Download your parts specifications and pricing from Octopart
* Download you parts symbols and footprints from SnapEDA
* Create your BOM
* Prepare your buying order from your BOM by chosing the best prices
Kipartman is a combination of a database and file server (kipartbase) and a graphical tool to manage it (kipartman).