Anthropic has updated Claude so its memory now works across both chatbot conversations and Claude Cowork sessions, while adding new controls over what information the system can retain.
The company said Claude can now access and carry over memories between its main chatbot and Cowork, Anthropic’s computer-use agent for automating repetitive tasks. Anthropic said this means users should need to repeat themselves less often because Claude can use context from prior chats when Cowork runs tasks in the cloud.
Cowork was released earlier this year. The update follows a recent change to Anthropic’s Claude for Chrome browser extension that made Cowork available through the plugin, and conversations in the Chrome side panel now become part of a user’s usage history.
Anthropic is also expanding user controls over memory. In recent weeks, users have been able to view Claude’s saved memories by topic and edit the details of each topic from the settings menu.
The company has added a new “include sensitive topics in memory” option. “By default, Claude does not store topics related to personal or sensitive subject matter, like your health, race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, politics, gender identity, and other similar areas,” Anthropic said.
If users enable that setting, Claude will begin adding those topics to memory and will send a notification each time it does so. Anthropic said the feature will not retroactively add past conversations to memory.
Users can turn the sensitive-topics setting off at any time and can edit or delete saved memories. Anthropic said the change reflects the view that “what some consider sensitive, others may consider useful for Claude to remember.”
Claude will still not save certain information, including social security numbers, criminal history and immigration status, even when the sensitive-topics setting is enabled, Anthropic said.
Memory is available and turned on by default for Free, Pro and Max accounts. On mobile, users must update to the latest version of the Claude app on Android or iOS to access the new features.
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