The step-by-step guide to setting up your AI-powered workspace. No technical experience required. From download to your first real task in under 30 minutes.
Most people know Claude as a chatbot: you type a question, you get an answer. Cowork is different. Instead of answering one question at a time, Claude takes on actual work: writing documents, building spreadsheets, researching companies, making presentations, analyzing data, all as real files on your computer.
| Regular Claude (Chat) | Claude Cowork |
|---|---|
| You ask, Claude answers | You assign a task, Claude does the work |
| Text responses only | Creates real files: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF |
| No access to your files | Reads and writes to a folder on your computer |
| Forgets between sessions | Remembers your context |
Memos, proposals, reports, emails, and posts as polished Word docs or PDFs.
Deep-dive a company, person, or topic and get a sourced research document.
Real PowerPoint decks you can open in PowerPoint or Google Slides.
Excel files with formulas and charts. Analyze a CSV. Build a dashboard.
Get the desktop app at claude.com/download, install it, and sign in with your Anthropic account. Then look at the top of the window: you'll see Chat, Cowork, and Code tabs. Click Cowork. (Ignore Code, that's for software developers.)
Heads up: the first time you open Cowork it downloads a ~2GB environment. This happens once and can take 5-10 minutes. Let it finish.
Cowork asks you to choose a folder. This is the one setup choice worth thirty seconds, because moving it later is a chore: create the folder inside your cloud-synced drive, not a plain local folder. Something like Google Drive/CoWork OS. Use whatever your work already runs on: Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive/SharePoint, or Box. Claude can only see files inside this folder, not your whole computer.
Type a request in plain English and be specific: "Write a one-page executive summary of my company for investors. Make it a Word doc." Claude asks a clarifying question or two if it needs to, works through the task while you watch or switch apps, then hands you a link to the finished file already sitting in your folder. No downloading.
You do not need any setup beyond Step 2 to get value. Paste one of these into Cowork and watch it produce a real file. Start at the top, it needs nothing from you.
"Research [Company Name]. Give me a Word doc covering what they do, their business model, key people, recent news, and competitive positioning."
Zero setup. Claude uses web search and hands you a real .docx.
"Write a one-page executive summary of my company for potential investors. Here's what we do: [brief description]. Make it a Word doc."
"Create a 10-slide pitch deck for [your company]. Include problem, solution, market size, business model, team, and ask. Make it a .pptx file."
Drop a CSV or Excel file into your folder, then ask: "Analyze the data in [filename]. Tell me the key trends and create a summary dashboard."
Once you're doing more than one-off tasks, use Projects, Cowork's first-party feature (built in since March 2026). A Project is a persistent workspace with its own files, instructions, and memory. Everything inside stays scoped to that Project, so Claude remembers your context across tasks without you re-explaining anything.
In Claude Desktop, click Projects in the left sidebar, then New Project.
Give it a clear name ("WuunderFund", "Q2 Marketing"). In the Instructions field, add a few lines on how Claude should work here: tone, formatting, key context. These apply to every task in the Project.
Add a local folder, link a chat project, or paste a URL for Claude to reference. This is what Claude draws from when it works.
Type your request. Claude now has your instructions and context loaded automatically.
Projects handle the basics. If you want a fuller system, an identity file that spans every project, reusable templates, a clean split between what Claude reads and what it writes, explicit memory you control, you have two options: build it by hand, or let a plugin do it in one command. Start with the plugin.
/begin, Done
CoWork OS is a free plugin (by Paul J Lipsky) that sets up your whole workspace through a short conversation. Install it, open a new session, type /begin, and answer a few questions. About five minutes later you have folders, an identity file, workspace rules, and a memory system, all built for you.
Download the plugin, then point Cowork at it. About two minutes.
Unzip the file. You get a folder called cowork-os-plugin. Put it anywhere you can find again.
In Cowork, click Customize (top-right), then Browse plugins, then Install from folder. Choose the cowork-os-plugin folder you just unzipped.
/beginThe plugin registers its commands. Type /begin and answer the questions. If /begin does not appear, restart the Cowork session.
.plugin file instead of a folder. For those: download the file, then drag it into a Cowork session or double-click it, and click Install. If a plugin lives in a GitHub repo, add it with /plugin marketplace add [user]/[repo], then /plugin install [name]. Since August 2026 you can also point the marketplace at the web address of a plugin zip.
/begin Asks, and Builds| Claude asks you… | What it builds |
|---|---|
| Your name and role? | An identity file so Claude knows who you are on every task |
| Your company, and what you do day to day? | Context so Claude understands your world |
| What tools do you use? | So Claude knows which formats to create |
| How do you like to work? | Behavior rules: direct vs detailed, short vs thorough |
| Any projects you're on right now? | A folder with isolated memory for each one |
When it finishes, your cloud folder holds an identity file, a templates folder, per-project folders, a place for everything Claude creates, workspace rules, and a memory file, all filled in from your answers. From then on, "remember this: [fact]" saves a note that persists, and "new project: [name]" spins up an isolated folder and memory in one line.
A connector gives Claude direct access to a tool, no copy-pasting, no exporting. Adding one takes about 30 seconds: click "Connect" and sign in. There are 50+ across every category. The ones most people start with:
| Connector | What Claude Can Do |
|---|---|
| Google Drive | Read and reference your Docs, Sheets, and Slides |
| Gmail | Read, draft, and send email; search your inbox |
| Google Calendar | Read your schedule, find conflicts, prep for meetings |
| Slack | Read channels, search messages, catch up on what you missed |
| HubSpot / Salesforce | Pull CRM contacts, deals, and account records |
Full directory at claude.com/connectors. All free. Add one via Cowork → Customize → Connectors.
Beyond connectors, plugins teach Claude to do role-specific work (Sales, Marketing, Finance, Legal, Data, and more), each bundling skills and templates built by Anthropic. Browse them under Customize, and see the Advanced Guide for building your own.
Claude comes in four models. You pick yours in the Cowork interface. From fastest to most capable:
Haiku 4.5, the fastest and cheapest. Reach for it on quick, simple jobs: reformatting text, a one-line question, high-volume back-and-forth.
Sonnet 5, the everyday default. Fast, and close to Opus-level on real work. It handles most of what you'll throw at it. Start here.
Opus 5, the deep-work model and the cost-effective pick for hard tasks. Best when the work needs careful reasoning or runs long, and it clears the large majority of demanding work for less than Fable 5. Make it your default when a job is genuinely hard.
Fable 5, the most capable model Anthropic ships. Built for the hardest reasoning and long-horizon work. It costs more per token than Opus, so save it for the roughly 10% of tasks where Opus gets stuck.
Rule of thumb: start with Sonnet 5. Move up to Opus 5 when the task is high-stakes, complex, or long-running. Drop to Haiku 4.5 for something quick. Escalate to Fable 5 only when Opus can't crack it.
A new task should be a new session. Long threads make Claude re-read everything and burn your limit (that's the warning from Step 1). When a job is done, start a clean one.
Role, task, format, audience. "A 10-slide investor deck for angel investors, confident tone, with a projections slide" beats "make a deck" every time.
The Drive connector reads Office files and Google Docs from a phone session, but not .md. If you want to pull something up on mobile, don't save it as markdown.
Cowork reads your folder before every task. Don't dump files in "just in case", a tight folder means Claude reads fast and reads well.
| You want to… | Go to |
|---|---|
| Get dramatically better results from any prompt | The Prompting Guide |
| Build workflows Claude runs for you | Claude in Action |
| Set up the folder/CLAUDE.md/memory system by hand, build skills and plugins | The Advanced Guide |
| Use Cowork on your phone and the web | Claude Everywhere |