Claude Cowork turns Claude Desktop into an agent that runs jobs on your Mac on a set cadence. You give it a task once. It runs every night, opens your apps, moves your data, and leaves you a finished result by morning. This guide is the full setup plus two working task templates you can paste in today.
Most people use Claude the way they use a search bar. Ask a question, read the answer, close the tab. The answer was good. Nothing in your business changed.
Cowork is the other thing. You hand Claude a job and walk away. It opens Chrome, reads your projects, writes files, posts content, syncs one tool into another. Then pair that with scheduled tasks and the job repeats on its own. Ten at night, it scans your client work and files the action items into Notion. Seven in the morning, it pulls a row from a sheet and posts it to your community.
Here is the whole build. Install, permissions, phone pairing, and the two templates that turn it from a demo into something that actually runs your operations.
What You Need Before You Start
Four things. Get them in place first so nothing stalls halfway through setup.
| Requirement | Details |
|---|---|
| Mac computer | macOS 11 Big Sur or higher. Cowork is Mac-only for now. |
| Claude subscription | Pro at $20 a month or Max at $100 to $200 a month. Free plans do not include Cowork. API keys do not work here. |
| Google Chrome | Required for anything that touches the web. Claude cannot open Chrome by itself, so Chrome has to be running when a task needs a browser. |
| Claude mobile app | iOS or Android. Needed for Dispatch, the phone-to-Mac control. Optional, but you will want it. |
One line to underline before you spend an hour on this. Cowork lives inside the desktop app on a paid plan. If you are on Free, or you were planning to point an API key at it, stop here. It will not run.
Step One: Install Claude Desktop and Turn On Cowork
Go to claude.com/download and grab the macOS version. Open the .dmg, drag Claude into your Applications folder, launch it, and sign in.
Now switch on the two things Cowork depends on.
Open Settings, then General under the desktop app section. Toggle on Computer Use. This is what lets Claude click, type, and move around your screen. It is the fallback for any app that does not have a direct connector.
At the top of the window you will see three tabs: Chat, Cowork, Code. Click Cowork. That is autonomous task mode.
Cowork can only reach folders inside your home directory, meaning /Users/YourName/. External drives, network volumes, and system folders are off limits. So make it a home for its work. In Finder, go to Documents, New Folder, and name it cowork_workspace.
Back in Cowork, click Work in a folder at the bottom and select cowork_workspace. When it asks "Allow Claude to change files?", click Always allow. macOS will also ask for Documents access. Click Allow.
Last, give it standing orders. Go to Settings, Cowork, Edit next to Global instructions and paste something like this:
I'm [YOUR NAME], founder of [YOUR COMPANY]. When creating documents, use professional formatting. Default to .docx for reports. Always summarize what you did at the end of each task.
Every session now starts with that context baked in. Done. Cowork is live.
The mistake that makes it fail: picking a folder outside your home directory. If you point it at an external drive or a network share, macOS blocks it and the task dies before it starts. Keep the workspace under Documents or Desktop.
Step Two: Put Claude in Chrome
Anything web-based runs through the Chrome extension, so install it next.
Open Chrome, go to the Chrome Web Store, search for Claude, and install the extension. Pin it: click the puzzle-piece icon in the toolbar and pin Claude so you can see its status at a glance. Then click the extension icon and sign in with the same Claude account you use in the desktop app.
Here is the rule that trips up almost everyone. Chrome has to be open, and the extension has to be active, for any browser task to work. Claude cannot launch Chrome on its own. If a scheduled task needs the web at 3am, Chrome needs to already be running at 3am.
The mistake that makes it fail: installing the extension and closing Chrome. Installed is not the same as open. A browser task with no browser running just reports that the extension is not connected, then stops.
Step Three: Pair Your Phone With Dispatch
Dispatch is a live link between your phone and your Mac. You fire a task from your phone, and it executes on your computer. It is how you kick off work from a coffee shop and come back to it finished.
In Claude Desktop, click Dispatch in the left sidebar. Set three toggles:
- Keep awake to ON. This stops your Mac from sleeping mid-task.
- Allow all browser actions to ON.
- Computer use. If it is not already on, click "Open settings" and enable it.
Now open the Claude app on your phone, go to the Dispatch tab, and follow the pairing steps. You scan a QR code shown on your Mac. Once it pairs, tasks you send from your phone run on your computer.
Test it before you trust it. From your phone, send:
Create a file called dispatch_test.txt with today's date.
Then check cowork_workspace on your Mac. If the file is there, the link works.
Step Four: Get Your Files Where Cowork Can Reach Them
If your project files live on an external drive, Cowork cannot touch them. You copy them into your home directory first. No shortcut around this.
Find the drive:
Copy this.
ls /Volumes/
That lists what is mounted. Then drill down to the files:
Copy this.
ls /Volumes/Storage/ ls "/Volumes/Storage/Desktop/Desktop Folder/"
Copy them into your workspace:
Copy this.
cp -r "/Volumes/Storage/Desktop/Desktop Folder/my_projects" ~/Documents/cowork_workspace/my_projects
Two things to remember. Folder names with spaces need quotes around the whole path. And aliases or shortcuts do not count. You have to copy the real files, not a pointer to them.
Step Five: Schedule Your First Task
This is the part that changes it from a clever assistant into an unattended worker.
- Open a Cowork session.
- Type
/schedulein the prompt. - Set the frequency: daily, weekly, or specific days and times.
- Paste your task instructions.
- Claude confirms the schedule.
Because the task fires on its own cadence, your Mac has to be ready when it does. Two settings and one habit cover it:
- Turn on Keep awake in Dispatch settings.
- In System Settings, Energy, disable "Put hard disks to sleep" and enable "Start up automatically after a power failure".
- Optionally install Amphetamine from the Mac App Store as a backup keep-awake tool.
Keep Claude Desktop open and Chrome running for anything that needs the browser. A scheduled task on a sleeping Mac with the app closed does not run. It just waits for the next day it can.
The next two sections are the payoff. Both are complete prompts. Paste them, swap the bracketed parts, and you have a running agent.
Copy The Nightly Client Sync
This one scans your Claude.ai projects for client work and files the action items into Notion. Schedule it for 10pm and wake up to an organized board instead of a memory of what you meant to do.
Schedule: Daily at 10 PM, or whatever hour you prefer.
Copy this whole prompt:
You are running a nightly sync task. Follow these steps:
Step 1: Open Chrome and navigate to Claude.ai projects
Use Chrome browser tools to:
- Get available tabs (createIfEmpty: true)
- Create a new tab and navigate to https://claude.ai
- Find and navigate to the Projects section
- Identify all projects with "client" in name
Step 2: Read latest messages from each client project
For each project found:
- Open the project
- Read the most recent conversation/messages
- Extract actionable items, tasks, follow-ups, decisions
- Note the project name as context
Step 3: Check existing Notion tasks (avoid duplicates)
Use Notion MCP tools to search the Tasks database. Compare by task title similarity and description content. A task is duplicate if it describes the same action for the same client/context.
Step 4: Create or update Notion tasks
For each NEW actionable item not already in Notion:
- Task: Clear, concise task title
- Description: Details from conversation + which project
- Status: "Todo"
- Urgency: "Now" if time-sensitive, "Soon" if upcoming For existing tasks with new updates, update Description.
Step 5: Archive completed tasks
Search for tasks with Status = "Done". Change Status to "Archived" to keep list clean.
Two things this task needs. The Notion connector has to be set up under Settings, Connectors. And Chrome has to be open with Claude.ai signed in. If you have never wired a connector, the MCP servers walkthrough covers how the connectors give Claude real hands into tools like Notion.
Notice the duplicate check in Step 3. That is the line doing the quiet, important work. Without it, the agent re-files the same task every night and your board becomes noise by Friday. The instruction to compare by title and context is what keeps a nightly job from turning into a nightly mess.
Copy The Daily Skool Post
This one reads a row from a Google Sheet and posts it to your community. Load a content calendar into the sheet once, and the daily posting runs itself.
Schedule: Daily at midnight, or your preferred hour.
Copy this whole prompt:
You are running a daily automated posting task.
Step 1: Open Google Sheet and find the next post
Open Chrome, navigate to your Google Sheet URL. Go to the "Skool Posts" tab. Look at "Posted" column. Find the FIRST row where Posted = FALSE. Extract: Post Title, Post Content, File Link.
Step 2: Post on the Skool community
Open a new tab, navigate to your Skool community URL. Click on the target category/section. Click "Write something" to create a new post.
- Set post title to the extracted Post Title
- Paste Post Content in the body
- Add blank line then paste File Link as URL Submit the post.
Step 3: Update the spreadsheet
Go back to the Google Sheet tab. Change the Posted column from FALSE to TRUE.
Step 4: Confirm completion
Save a log entry in cowork_workspace/skool_post_log.md with date, post title, and SUCCESS or FAILED.
Rules:
- Only post ONE row per run. After posting one, stop.
- If no rows have Posted = FALSE, log "No posts remaining."
- If any step fails, do NOT mark row as TRUE. Log failure.
This task needs Chrome open with access to the sheet, and your Skool community signed in inside Chrome. Replace the two placeholder URLs with your real sheet and community links.
Read the Rules block at the bottom. It is short and it is the difference between a tool and a liability. One row per run means it cannot dump your whole calendar in a single morning. "Do not mark the row TRUE if a step failed" means a broken post does not get silently marked as done and lost. When you write your own tasks, that block is where you spend your care. State what the agent must never do, in plain language, and it holds the line.
When It Breaks: The Four Things To Check
It will break sometimes. Almost every failure is one of four things, and each has a fast fix.
"Chrome extension is not connected." Chrome is not actually open, or the extension is signed out. Open Chrome for real, click the extension icon to confirm it is signed in. Still stuck? Disable and re-enable the extension.
"Only folders within your home directory can be used." You pointed it at an external drive, a system folder, or a network share. Move your workspace under Documents, Desktop, or anywhere below /Users/YourName/.
The scheduled task did not run at all. Walk the checklist. Was Claude Desktop open? Was the Mac awake? Was Chrome open, if the task needs the web? And check for a "Server is busy" error, which means Claude was at capacity. It usually retries on its own.
The task ran but stopped partway. Find which step it stuck on. Then simplify: break the big task into smaller ones. For browser tasks, run it by hand once so you understand the click path. And add a line like "If this step fails, skip it and move to the next" to make the task survive a hiccup instead of dying at it.
Honest: What This Costs and When Not To Use It
Cowork is not free-feeling, even on a subscription. It burns through your Claude allocation much faster than regular chat, because the agent is reading screens, driving a browser, and making many calls per task. Three habits keep it in check. Batch related work into one session instead of many. Use plain Chat mode for simple questions. And watch your usage under Settings, Usage. If you keep hitting the ceiling, Max is the upgrade, not a workaround.
The other honest limit is physical. This runs on your machine. If the Mac is asleep or Claude Desktop is closed when the schedule fires, the task does not run. Keep-awake settings and an open app are not optional extras. They are the thing that makes the schedule real.
So do not reach for Cowork when a one-off question would do, or when a task has to be exactly right every single time with zero tolerance for a wrong click. It is an agent, not a guarantee. It shines on recurring, forgiving work: nightly syncs, daily posts, the small operational chores that eat your evenings and would survive the occasional retry. If you already run prompts that keep Claude Code working while you sleep, Cowork is the same idea with a screen and a schedule attached.
Here is the setup in one breath. Install Claude Desktop, turn on Computer Use and Cowork. Add Claude to Chrome and keep Chrome open. Pair your phone through Dispatch if you want to fire tasks on the go. Make a workspace folder inside your home directory. Wire your connectors. Type /schedule and paste a task. Keep the Mac awake and the app open. Then let it run.
If you only do one thing this week, set up the nightly client sync. One task, one schedule, one night. Wake up tomorrow and see whether the board filled itself. If it did not, you spent an hour learning the tool and lost nothing. If it did, you just hired the cheapest employee you will ever have, and it works the shift you hate most.