Projects in Claude Cowork

Create a project

Open Projects in the left sidebar and click +. There are three ways to start:

• Start from scratch: a new folder, with instructions and files.
• Import from a Claude project: pick an existing chat project, one at a time, and its files and instructions are copied into a new Cowork project.
• Use an existing folder on your computer as the project's context. These projects stay on that computer and aren't saved to your Claude account.

Needs the latest Claude Desktop. Projects aren't available in Claude Code yet; Anthropic says support is planned.

What each project has

• Instructions that apply to every task in the project: tone, formatting and rules.
• Scheduled tasks specific to the project.
• Context: a local folder, a linked chat project, or a URL.
• Memory, scoped to the project. Claude remembers what it learned from earlier tasks in this project and applies it next time. Nothing carries over into other projects.

Chat projects use retrieval (RAG), so large amounts of project knowledge don't all load into context at once. Keep instructions short and remove files you no longer need; both help with usage limits (usage and length limits).

Share and archive

• Sharing is available on Team and Enterprise. Give people in your organisation "Can view" or "Can edit" access and change it later. Group sharing is in beta on Enterprise.
• Archiving removes the project from the interface but leaves files on your computer untouched.

Outputs and artifacts

Cowork delivers finished files (documents, spreadsheets with working formulas, slide decks) to the session for preview and download, and Claude can edit Markdown drafts in place. Since 2026-08-19, artifacts made in Cowork work like any other Claude artifact. Older Cowork "live artifacts" still open and share, but to edit one you republish it as a new artifact (live artifacts). Designs, decks and one-pagers come from Claude Design templates.