In July 2026 Cowork left the desktop. Sessions and scheduled tasks now run in the cloud, and you reach them from your phone, the web, or your Mac. Hand Claude a task at your desk, pick up the finished work on the train. One idea keeps you out of trouble: the cloud is visible everywhere, your desktop is a one-way mirror.
Until July 2026, Cowork lived on your desktop. If you wanted a scheduled task to fire, the Mac had to be awake and the app open. Close the laptop and everything stopped.
The release changed three things at once. Cowork now runs on mobile and web, not just the desktop app. Sessions you start on your phone or the web run on Anthropic's servers, so they keep going after you close the laptop. And scheduled tasks moved to the cloud, so they fire on time whether or not your computer is on.
| Before (desktop only) | After (July 2026) |
|---|---|
| One surface: the desktop app | Three surfaces: desktop, web, mobile |
| Scheduled tasks need the Mac awake | Scheduled tasks run in the cloud, laptop closed |
| A session lives on the machine you started it on | Cloud sessions sync to every device |
| Connectors set up per machine | Connectors shared across desktop, web, and mobile |
There are two kinds of session behind the three screens. A cloud session is one you start on your phone or the web, plus every scheduled task. A local session is one you start on the desktop app, working inside a folder on your actual computer.
Sync runs one way. Anything that happens in the cloud shows up everywhere: phone, web, and desktop. Anything you do in a local desktop session stays on the desktop. Your phone will never see it.
| Where you started the work | Shows up on desktop? | Shows up on phone / web? |
|---|---|---|
| Phone or web (cloud session) | Yes | Yes |
| Scheduled task (cloud) | Yes | Yes |
| Desktop, inside a local folder | Yes | No |
The question that decides whether a task runs with your laptop closed is simple: does it touch a file on your actual computer? If it only reads and writes connectors, it runs in the cloud. If it reaches into a local folder, it needs the Mac.
| Task type | Runs in the cloud? (laptop can be off) |
|---|---|
| Scheduled task reading Gmail / Calendar and writing a briefing | Yes |
| A session you start on phone or web | Yes |
| Research that pulls from the web and a connector | Yes |
| Organizing or renaming files in a local folder | No, needs the Mac |
| Reading a local .xlsx or .docx off your desktop | No, needs the Mac |
This is the part the launch-day videos skip. Because a cloud session can't touch your local folders, the only way to make a workflow's output reach your phone is to store it in a connector: Google Drive, Notion, Slack, Gmail. The connector is the shared shelf all three surfaces can read from.
That reframes connectors. They are no longer an optional step-nine nicety. They are the thing that decides whether your finished work follows you out of the building.
.md or .txt. So the briefing above is fine as HTML you read yourself, but if you want Claude on your phone to pick a file back up and work with it, save it as .docx, .pdf, or a Google Doc. Same reason your CLAUDE.md and MEMORY.md stay a desktop concern, which is fine, the desktop reads them straight off the folder. Checked against Anthropic's Google Workspace connectors documentation, May 2026.
Every workflow you build now carries a design choice: should it live in the cloud so you can run and review it anywhere, or on the desktop where it has the full file tree? Use this to decide.
| Build it CLOUD-first when... | Build it LOCAL when... |
|---|---|
| Inputs and outputs live in connectors (email, calendar, Drive, Notion, CRM) | You're organizing, renaming, or reading files on your own machine |
| You want to trigger it and review it from your phone | The work is heavy file processing or code you watch run |
| It's a scheduled task that should run while you sleep | You want the full desktop workspace and local file tree |
No hype here. As of July 2026, three gaps are worth knowing before you rebuild your whole setup around mobile.
Your existing workflows don't need replacing. They need one thing added: a storage decision, because storage now decides device reach.
The old version queued tasks from your phone for the Mac to run. The new version runs the work itself in a cloud session, laptop closed, reviewable from any device. Point its outputs at Drive or Notion instead of a local folder, and the finished work is on your phone with your coffee. Full setup in Claude in Action, Workflow 1.
Morning briefing, meeting prep, evening debrief all read connectors and write a briefing. That makes them pure-cloud: they fire on schedule and land on your phone whether or not you opened your laptop. See Claude in Action, Workflow 2.