What Claude used to remember was often only half the picture. Things discussed with the chatbot might not carry over at all when switching to Cowork for task execution, and vice versa. On August 25, Anthropic updated this memory system to connect the two sides.
Cowork is a computer-use agent tool Anthropic launched earlier this year for automating repetitive tasks. According to the company, "when Cowork runs tasks in the cloud, the memories you've left in chat will show up there, and vice versa." The practical effect is straightforward: when handing off tasks to Cowork, users no longer need to repeat background information already covered in a chat session. This update closely follows the rollout of Cowork support in the Claude for Chrome browser extension—since that change, conversations in the Chrome sidebar also count toward usage history.
Another change concerns control over memory content. Over the past few weeks, users have already been able to view and edit what the bot remembers by topic in Claude's settings menu. What's new this time is a toggle for "including sensitive topics in memory." Anthropic explains that by default, Claude does not store content related to personal or sensitive subjects such as health, race, religious beliefs, political stance, or gender identity.
Once this toggle is turned on, Claude will begin incorporating such topics into memory, with a notification appearing each time something is recorded. Anthropic emphasizes that this feature won't retroactively apply to past conversations, and users can turn it off at any time, as well as edit or delete stored content themselves. As for why this option is being introduced now, the company says "what feels sensitive to some may be exactly what others want Claude to remember." Even with the toggle enabled, information such as Social Security numbers, criminal records, and immigration status still won't be stored.
The memory feature is enabled by default for all Free, Pro, and Max accounts. Mobile users will need to update to the latest version of the Claude Android or iOS app to see this change.
