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Cowork: Claude Code for the rest of your work

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Cowork: Claude Code for the rest of your work

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Claude apps

Date

January 12, 2026

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5

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https://claude.com/blog/cowork-research-preview

When we released Claude Code, we expected developers to use it for coding. They did—and then quickly began using it for almost everything else. This prompted us to build Cowork: a simpler way for anyone—not just developers—to work with Claude in the very same way. Cowork is available today as a research preview for Claude Max subscribers on our macOS app, and we will improve it rapidly from here.

How is using Cowork different from a regular conversation? In Cowork, you give Claude access to a folder of your choosing on your computer. Claude can then read, edit, or create files in that folder. It can, for example, re-organize your downloads by sorting and renaming each file, create a new spreadsheet with a list of expenses from a pile of screenshots, or produce a first draft of a report from your scattered notes.

In Cowork, Claude completes work like this with much more agency than you’d see in a regular conversation. Once you’ve set it a task, Claude will make a plan and steadily complete it, while looping you in on what it’s up to. If you’ve used Claude Code, this will feel familiar—Cowork is built on the very same foundations. This means Cowork can take on many of the same tasks that Claude Code can handle, but in a more approachable form for non-coding tasks.

When you’ve mastered the basics, you can make Cowork more powerful still. Claude can use your existing connectors, which link Claude to external information, and in Cowork we’ve added an initial set of skills that improve Claude’s ability to create documents, presentations, and other files. If you pair Cowork with Claude in Chrome, Claude can complete tasks that require browser access, too.

Cowork is designed to make using Claude for new work as simple as possible. You don’t need to keep manually providing context or converting Claude’s outputs into the right format. Nor do you have to wait for Claude to finish before offering further ideas or feedback: you can queue up tasks and let Claude work through them in parallel. It feels much less like a back-and-forth and much more like leaving messages for a coworker.

Stay in control

In Cowork, you can choose which folders and connectors Claude can see: Claude can’t read or edit anything you don’t give it explicit access to. Claude will also ask before taking any significant actions, so you can steer or course-correct it as you need.

That said, there are still things to be aware of before you give Claude control. By default, the main thing to know is that Claude can take potentially destructive actions (such as deleting local files) if it’s instructed to. Since there’s always some chance that Claude might misinterpret your instructions, you should give Claude very clear guidance around things like this.

You should also be aware of the risk of “prompt injections”: attempts by attackers to alter Claude’s plans through content it might encounter on the internet. We’ve built sophisticated defenses against prompt injections, but agent safety—that is, the task of securing Claude’s real-world actions—is still an active area of development in the industry.

These risks aren’t new with Cowork, but it might be the first time you’re using a more advanced tool that moves beyond a simple conversation. We recommend taking precautions, particularly while you learn how it works. We provide more detail in our Help Center.

Looking forward

This is a research preview. We’re releasing Cowork early because we want to learn what people use it for, and how they think it could be better. We encourage you to experiment with what Cowork can do for you, and to try things you don’t expect to work: you might be surprised! As we learn more from this preview, we plan to make lots of improvements (including by adding cross-device sync and bringing it to Windows), and we’ll identify further ways to make it safer.

Claude Max subscribers can try Cowork now by downloading the macOS app, then clicking on “Cowork” in the sidebar. If you’re on another plan, you can join the waitlist for future access.

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