# Learn 80% of Claude Cowork in Under 20 Minutes

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** Jeff Su
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9rdrNrkvDY
- **Дата:** 07.04.2026
- **Длительность:** 18:54
- **Просмотры:** 614,471
- **Источник:** https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/49064

## Описание

🌟 Grab my free AI Toolkit: https://academy.jeffsu.org/ai-toolkit?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=v202

Claude #Cowork is Anthropic's desktop app that turns Claude from a chatbot into a full productivity system on your computer. This walkthrough covers the 7 core capabilities, including local file access, persistent memory, connectors, skills, Cowork Projects, and scheduled tasks, with real examples you can try today.

If you've been using #Claude Chat but want to automate real work like expense reports, inbox triage, and reusable workflows, this is where to start.

*TIMESTAMPS*
00:00 Claude Chat, Cowork, Code
00:25: Claude Chat vs. Claude Cowork
02:19 Claude Cowork: Essential Settings
04:12 Capability #1: Local File Access
06:14 Capability #2: Persistent Memory
08:44 Capability #3: Tools & Connectors
10:38 Capability #4: Claude Skills
14:26 Capability #5: Cowork Projects
15:39 Capability #6: Claude Browser Extension
16:44 Capability #7: Scheduled Tasks

*RESOURCES MENT

## Транскрипт

### Claude Chat, Cowork, Code []

You're in the right place if you use Claude Chat everyday, are intimidated by Claude Code, and know Claude Co-work exists but not why you need it. Because in this video, we're breaking down the seven core capabilities of Claude Co-work, each with real-world use cases, so that by the end, you know exactly what it can do and where it fits in your workflow. Quick heads-up, I've been making AI videos for about 3 years now, and I've never felt this way about a single tool. Let's get started. Kicking

### Claude Chat vs. Claude Cowork [0:25]

things off with the three biggest differences between Claude Chat, the chatbot we're all very familiar with, and Claude Co-work, the native desktop app. First, while both Claude Chat and Co-work require an internet connection, Chat uploads files to the cloud, which limits you to 20 files per conversation and 30 megabytes per file. But, since Co-work can access your local files, neither of those limitations apply, and so Co-work can easily handle more files with larger file sizes. On top of that, Co-work has a much larger context window, meaning you can do a lot more work before triggering the compacting conversation function, which is basically Claude summarizing your previous context to free up space but potentially losing important details in the process. Difference number two, Claude Chat gives you a response in a chat window that you have to then copy, format, or download yourself. While Co-work actually does the work and delivers ready-to-use files directly in your folder. Spoiler alert, the final output isn't limited to just local files since Co-work can connect to external pages in Notion directly, for example. But, let's not get ahead of ourselves, we'll cover that later. Third, as a result of those first two differences, we need to prompt Co-work differently than Claude Chat. With Chat, we use task-first language, so we tell it what to do step-by-step. For example, review my raw thumbnail photos and recommend a naming convention and folder structure I should use. You get back a recommendation in text, and then you go do the work yourself. With Co-work, we use outcome-first language, where we define the end result, the constraints, and the quality bar. For example, I have 15 raw thumbnail photos in this folder. I need them organized into subfolders by topic with descriptive file names. You let Co-work run, and 3 minutes later, the work is done. If you're struggling with this, I prepared a prompt template where you can just describe what you're trying to do, and it spits out a prompt that's optimized for Claude Co-work, linked down

### Claude Cowork: Essential Settings [2:19]

below. Now, let's go over a few essential settings so that Co-work is set up properly. First, make sure the Co-work tab is selected, and then under settings, the first general tab here, this is where you'll find personal preferences that apply to both Claude Chat and Co-work. But, if you go down to the Co-work tab, you'll be able to add instructions that apply to Co-work only. I've actually put together a starter pack of instructions beginners can just copy and paste immediately out of the goodness of my heart, obviously, and not at all because I'm trying to build a parasocial relationship so that one day you'll buy my paid products. What? No, that's just obviously a joke. Anyway, these instructions are basically guardrails that stop Co-work from touching your files without asking. Like, before deleting, overwriting, or renaming any existing file, show me what will change and wait for confirmation. Think of these like training wheels on a bicycle, right? You can remove them as you get more experience with Co-work. Next, under settings, capabilities, enable both memory features. I leave location metadata off, like that's going to help with data privacy. Um, set tool access to load tools when needed, and enable all of these features down below. And finally, whether you're on Windows or Mac, head on over to your documents folder and create a new subfolder called Co-work Playground so that everything we do today is contained in that one folder and your other files stay untouched. Now, when we open up a new conversation, point Co-work at your playground folder by choosing the folder under documents, Co-work Playground, and if this is the first time you're giving access, it will ask you for access, and you can click always allow. And just know that Co-work is very strict about file access. So, if you drag a file from your downloads folder, for example, into Co-work, right? Co-work will be able to load it, but it can't read that file. So, if you want to follow along today, make sure all your files are within the playground

### Capability #1: Local File Access [4:12]

folder. All right, capability number one. In plain English, Co-work can create, edit, and organize files directly on your computer. Diving right into an example, I've added a folder of over 100 receipts into the playground folder that are a mix of PDFs and JPEGs. — I tell Co-work, "Look, I need an expense report from the receipt photos in my receipts folder. Uh, give me Excel spreadsheet with a date, vendor, category, amount, and a totals row. If anything's blurry or unclear, mark it verify. " Thanks to the starter pack instructions, Co-work first lists the steps it plans to take, waits for my confirmation, then reads every single image, extracts the relevant information, and outputs a formatted Excel file directly in my folder. And as you can see, there are also flagged rows for me to double-check. Now, is that possible in Claude Chat? Not really, because Chat has a 20-file limit per conversation, and we have more than 20 receipts, obviously. And even if we had fewer receipts, Chat would still only give us a spreadsheet in a chat window. We'd then have to download and like save somewhere else ourselves. Example two, I have a massive 400-plus megabyte PDF that I need broken into smaller chunks so it's easier to upload onto AI tools. — I can just tell Co-work, "I have a massive PDF. I need it broken into separate files, one per chapter or major section with descriptive file names so I can find what I need at a glance. " And Co-work, unlike Chat, will identify natural section breaks, create all those individual files, and then save them all back in your folder. Example three, Notebook LM can create amazing PowerPoint presentations, but the slides are images that can't be edited. So, we share the file with Co-work and say, "These slides aren't editable. Rebuild this as a clean, editable PowerPoint, same content, same slide order. " And Co-work will first read all the slides to understand the underlying content before recreating the entire presentation with real text boxes you can actually modify. Although it's not perfect, as you can see here, it's better than just having

### Capability #2: Persistent Memory [6:14]

static images. Persistent memory is the most important capability we're covering today, and it's only possible thanks to capability number one, Co-work having local file access. Let me explain with a silly example. If I go into Claude Chat, open personal preferences, and add, "Always address me as Heisenberg at the start of every conversation. " I start a new chat, and Claude will always open with, "Hey, Heisenberg. " Say my name. Heisenberg. You're goddamn right. That's technically persistent memory. You tell the AI something, and the AI remembers that thing in future conversations without you having to repeat yourself. But, because Claude Chat's memory is stored online, there's a hard limit to how much it can hold. Co-work saves memory to actual files on your computer, meaning it can remember every decision you've asked it to hold, every preference you've set for as long as you need. For example, if I ask Co-work, "How many newsletter editions have we produced together so far? Break it down by which app each edition covered. " By the way, you should definitely sign up for my weekly newsletter if you haven't already. It'll load up the relevant context, tell me we've produced seven editions together, two for Gmail, two for Chrome, and so on and so forth. And remember, this was from a brand new session with no prior conversation. Here's a use case you can try yourself. I have a meeting transcript within a subfolder in Co-work Playground, and I say, "Summarize the meeting transcript, limit to 200 words. " And after it gives me that first output, let's say I don't like the structure of this, and I move the context up top, for example. Not that that's something I'd ever do because context always comes after, but I tell Co-work, "I've made some changes to your summary. Compare your version with mine and save those preferences in a visible root Claude MD and memory MD files so you remember them next time. " Co-work then reconciles the two versions, figures out what I changed, and most importantly, and I can't stress this enough, most importantly, it creates something called a Claude MD and memory MD file. First, you can see that Co-work created these two files under your playground root folder. How these work is more advanced than what we'll cover today, so I'll save that for the next video. For now, just know whenever you tell Co-work to remember something, it writes to those files. And the more it writes, the better Co-work gets at working the way you want it to. So, keep those two files there. By the way, I recently revamped my free AI toolkit from scratch. New the original, this is a completely different experience, link down below. Next up, connecting Co-work to tools. By default

### Capability #3: Tools & Connectors [8:44]

Co-work can only see what's in your folder. Connectors let it reach into the tools you already use, like Gmail, Google Drive, or Notion, right? So, it can read from them and work directly inside them. To set this up, click the customize tab on the left, go to connectors, click the plus icon, then browse connectors, and you can search for the tool that you use. At the very minimum, to follow along today, I recommend you connect Gmail, Google Calendar, uh, Google Drive, and Notion if you use it. Once you've connected Gmail, you can tell Co-work something like, "I want you to understand my tone of voice. Go through my emails from the past month to extract my tone of voice, and save those as writing style principles you can follow going forward. " Co-work then proceeds to read through my emails, locates those with substantive writing, distills the patterns it sees, and presents them to me, and then saves them as writing style principles within the memory MD file so that next time I when I draft an email, it remembers my tone of voice. Next example, although my team and I take meeting notes in Notion, we use Google Gemini to auto-generate transcripts that are stored in Google Drive. So, if I were an anal, high-maintenance, unreasonable manager, which I'm not, I tell Cowork, "Hey, check the Gemini transcript against the meeting notes in Notion and surface commitments that didn't make it into the notes. " And Cowork will read both documents, compare what was said versus what was written, and surface the action items, the commitments that didn't make it into the notes page. This is an example of two connectors working together via Cowork. It pulls a transcript from Google Drive, pulls the meeting notes from Notion, cross-references them, and surfaces what fell through the cracks. By the way, if you can't find the tool you want under connectors, you can add a custom connector through something called an MCP, which we're not covering today, but just know that option exists. All right

### Capability #4: Claude Skills [10:38]

capability number four, skills. Let's dive right into a simple example. I just asked Cowork to write something for me, and I want to clean up the output. So, I run it through a prompt template I use all the time that makes any text more clear and concise. Cowork gives me a version two of the output. I like it, and now I can tell Cowork, "Hey, turn what you just did into a clear and concise skill. " You can see that Cowork first runs its own skill creator skill for this task. Then, it asks me a few clarifying questions. Uh this skill should apply to any text. It should rewrite and provide a change log so I can see what changed. And yes, let's skip the test cases, and Cowork proceeds to keep going. After receiving permission, Cowork creates the skill, and I can now just add the skill to my Cowork with just one click. And clicking the manage pop-up on the top right lets me see all the skills I currently have access to. Now, the next time Claude gives me something and I say, "Make it more clear and concise," Cowork simply runs its last output through the skill we just created. So, that was just a simple one-step skill, which honestly isn't that impressive, right? But the underlying concept is exactly the same for a weekly report that might take 10 steps from start to finish. You teach Cowork what to do, how many steps there are, and it repeats it every single time, which is a massive time-saver over the long run. Here's a more practical example. When I was at Google, different teams would send me their weekly updates in completely different formats, and I had to combine everything into one clean update for leadership. So, I share the raw updates from the three teams with Cowork and say, "Combine these three team updates into one formatted weekly marketing update I can send to leadership. " After a few minutes, Cowork produces a first draft. And although it looks great, it's way too dense. So, I give feedback, "Lead with three top-line metrics across all teams, then give me three highlights and three lowlights. Keep it within 300 words. " Cowork revises, but gives me the output in chat. So, just for fun, I ask for a PDF format. And after a few more minutes, Cowork gives me the report in PDF, and the structure is exactly what I wanted. So, I can finally tell Cowork, "Now, go back through our conversation and create a weekly report skill that captures this entire workflow. " After asking me a few clarifying questions, Cowork summarizes my request, asks for permissions again, then spends a few minutes creating the skill and running tests with hypothetical scenarios. Once that's all done, Cowork tells me I need to install the skill manually, almost like I planned for this to happen. So, I head on over to customize, skills, plus icon, upload a skill, find the skill. md file that Cowork generated, and boom, we now have a weekly report skill. Three more things you need to know about skills. First, to create your own skill, head on over to customize, skills, and make sure the skill creator by Anthropic skill is enabled. And while there are websites that offer skill templates, I highly recommend creating the first few yourself to get a hang of creating skills from scratch. Second, you can update a skill anytime by telling Cowork which skill to change, what to change about that skill, and granting permission for the change. But after it recreates it, you need to click copy again to overwrite the previous version. I'd also recommend backing up your skills to Google Drive because if you move to a new computer, skills do not transfer over. Third, under the customize option skills tab, you'll see if you click plus, there's an option to create a skill with Claude. I do not recommend doing this because it's much more effective for you to actually just go through the actual workflow first, go through that back-and-forth process, then reverse engineer the skill at the end, like I showed you earlier today.

### Capability #5: Cowork Projects [14:26]

Moving on, at the risk of massively oversimplifying, Cowork projects and Claude chat projects are basically the same thing, except Cowork projects come with all the capabilities we've already covered. Local file access, persistent memory, connectors, skills, all of it. But there is one thing worth calling out. Cowork projects can write to their knowledge files directly, unlike Claude chat projects. Here's what I mean. I have a Claude chat project called Clarity Partner that helps me make my writing more articulate. After a session where we go back and forth on a piece of writing, Claude learns something new about my style, and I want to save that as a permanent principle so it remembers next time. In a chat project, after I ask Claude to codify our learnings, Claude is able to generate an updated knowledge file for me. And while I am able to add this to the project as a knowledge file in one click, I still have to manually delete the old file from the project settings. In Cowork, I can just say something like, "Codify this principle under the Clarity Partner project. " Like when I'm explaining a concept, always start with an example first. And Cowork writes it directly to the instruction file without me having to do anything. If you're watching this and thinking, "I want a system like this for my own work," I'm actually building a course that walks you through exactly that step by step. I'll leave a link to

### Capability #6: Claude Browser Extension [15:39]

the waitlist down below. So, [snorts] ironically, this next capability also highlights one of Cowork's biggest weaknesses. The capability itself is simple. If you have the Claude extension installed on your browser, Cowork can theoretically hand off tasks to the browser extension. I say theoretically because I simply can't recommend the extension right now for three practical reasons. First, it's slow as since most interactions require a screenshot sent back to Cowork before it decides what to do next. Second, it's unreliable. There were many times where it just stopped halfway through a task without finishing. Talk about being blue-balled by Claude. Third, it burns through your usage because it overthinks every step since it has to be super careful when controlling your browser. Coming back to the weakness I mentioned earlier, while both Claude chat and Cowork can search the web, Claude chat gives us a lot more control. We can force web search, enable or disable, and we can even enable or disable this mid-conversation. With Cowork, you can't force a web search, and it often falls back on the browser extension. And given how unreliable the extension is right now, that's a real limitation. To be

### Capability #7: Scheduled Tasks [16:44]

clear, scheduled tasks aren't new. Gemini and ChatGPT have had this feature for a while now, but I found that only Claude Cowork's scheduled tasks work flawlessly, and it's because of the capabilities we've just covered. Diving into an example, let's open up scheduled tasks and click into this morning inbox triage task that runs every day at 6:00 a. m. It produces a report and draft replies for all my emails. Let's actually just open up an example to show you. And because of how I set this up, the report and the draft replies are basically flawless. So, let me walk you through how this works. First, long-time viewers know I teach my inbox zero workflow in the Workspace Academy course, and Cowork took that inbox zero workflow and distilled a set of rules to follow. And thanks to capability number one, local file access, it saved those rules in a markdown document, as you can see here. Inbox zero triage workflow, and these are the instructions. Second, since Cowork is connected to Gmail through the connectors feature, capability number three, it's able to read all my emails, right? Map them against my inbox zero rules and what it knows about me to draft contextually relevant replies. But this did not work so well at the beginning. For the first week or so, I had to give feedback to Cowork on how I would have rephrased certain emails. And thanks to persistent memory, capability number two, Cowork remembers those corrections and now triages my inbox the way I would. And this does require some setup. In my actual Cowork folder, I have an email HQ subfolder, and here you can see within the Claude. md file, I have my inbox zero triage workflow, right? And within the memory. md file right over here, it remembers the feedback I've given it. For example, how I like my how I like to sign off in my email signature, right? So, this represents weeks of feedback and context and basically learning, so to speak. I know that looked intimidating, but don't worry, I'm going to dive much deeper in future videos. So, see you soon, and in the meantime, have a great one.