[BUG] Cowork: Cannot mount folders from external volumes (/Volumes/)

Facing this similar error in claude desktop, any solutions ?

Its a problem for mac os users. the still say its only possible to add "home directory". We need external drive support

same here

I created a directory in the root folder and symlinked from the external drive to the root folder on the internal disk, and it worked.

My user is luiscapobianco on an external drive called T7

So I created this directory structure on the main drive:
/Users/luiscapobianco/Library/Application Support/Claude/vm_bundles/claudevm.bundle

And in the following directory:
/Volumes/T7/Users/luiscapobianco/Library/Application Support/Claude

I executed the following command:
ln -s /Users/luiscapobianco/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/vm_bundles

same issue here

I'm getting this error in a local folder, which happens to be a code folder containing Claude.md etc. I usually work on this within the app using Claude Code CLI, but I'm trying out Cowork to see what additional capabilities it might provide to working in the code folder context.

same issue here

yes this is a big issue for me - I work mainly on my external drive

The symbolic link from the external drive to the internal drive works perfectly. I have been using it for over two weeks now with no issues.

Workaround: SMB loopback mount (macOS — no installs needed)

Found a working workaround that requires no third-party software. The idea is to mount the external drive to a path inside your home directory via macOS's built-in SMB file sharing.

Prerequisites: Enable File Sharing in System Settings → General → Sharing → File Sharing, and make sure your external drive is listed as a shared folder.

Steps:

1. Create a mount point inside your home directory:

mkdir -p ~/ExternalDrive

1. Mount via SMB loopback (replace YourUsername and Your%20Drive%20Name with your values — use %20 for spaces):

mount_smbfs "//YourUsername@localhost/Your%20Drive%20Name" ~/ExternalDrive

1. Enter your Mac login password when prompted.
2. In Cowork's folder picker, press ⌘ + Shift + G and navigate to ~/ExternalDrive/. The "Open" button should now work.

Why it works: Unlike symlinks (which Cowork resolves and rejects), an SMB mount creates a real filesystem mount point inside ~/, so Cowork's home-directory check passes.

To persist across restarts, you can store your password in the macOS Keychain and set up a LaunchAgent that runs the mount command at login. Happy to share the full automation script if there's interest.

To unmount: umount ~/ExternalDrive

Tested on macOS with a Seagate external HDD connected to a Mac mini.

Same issue. Severely limits what I can do with Cowork. I don't really keep any working files in my "Home" directory. About to test out the smb solution from @jasonbourne27

I was sent here from #24008 - as described there, this is (maybe?) a regression of #20382. I also wanted to highlight that we are also blocked on directories outside of the home dir, including symlinks. I have a shared workspace directory that I want to run cowork in, but am unable to due to this issue. If I should open a separate issue for "files outside of user's home dir but not on an external drive" I'm happy to do that as well, thank you.

I also have this issue. Trying to work in a shared onedrive folder. Works on claude code, but not cowork

Workaround: SMB loopback mount (macOS — no installs needed) Found a working workaround that requires no third-party software. The idea is to mount the external drive to a path inside your home directory via macOS's built-in SMB file sharing. Prerequisites: Enable File Sharing in System Settings → General → Sharing → File Sharing, and make sure your external drive is listed as a shared folder. Steps: 1. Create a mount point inside your home directory: mkdir -p ~/ExternalDrive 1. Mount via SMB loopback (replace YourUsername and Your%20Drive%20Name with your values — use %20 for spaces): mount_smbfs "//YourUsername@localhost/Your%20Drive%20Name" ~/ExternalDrive 1. Enter your Mac login password when prompted. 2. In Cowork's folder picker, press ⌘ + Shift + G and navigate to ~/ExternalDrive/. The "Open" button should now work. Why it works: Unlike symlinks (which Cowork resolves and rejects), an SMB mount creates a real filesystem mount point inside ~/, so Cowork's home-directory check passes. To persist across restarts, you can store your password in the macOS Keychain and set up a LaunchAgent that runs the mount command at login. Happy to share the full automation script if there's interest. To unmount: umount ~/ExternalDrive Tested on macOS with a Seagate external HDD connected to a Mac mini.

Thank you for this workaround! I tried to implement it, but it didn't work in my case. I had Claude draft this bug report to add to the thread:

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Environment:

• MacBook Pro, Apple M2
• macOS Sonoma 14.4.1
• Claude Desktop (latest)
• Cowork research preview
• External drive: exFAT formatted, connected via USB-C, mounted at /Volumes/tbkcitadel

Summary:
The SMB loopback workaround described in this thread does not work on Apple Silicon Macs running Sonoma. All daemon-based mounting approaches are blocked by macOS sandbox restrictions from accessing /Volumes/ paths, making it currently impossible to use Cowork with an external drive on this configuration.

Approaches attempted and results:

1. Symlink — Cowork resolves and rejects symlinks pointing outside the home directory.

1. SMB loopback (mount_smbfs //thebalanceking@localhost/tbkcitadel) — Fails with authentication error. Log analysis shows smbd cannot reach the GSSCred service due to sandbox restrictions:

smbd: failed to do a bootstrap look-up: xpc_error=[159: Unknown error: 159]
smbd: smb2_dispatch_session_setup: session_setup_transact status: 0xc000006e
smbd: gss_accept_sec_context: major_status: 0xd0000, minor_status: 0xa2e9a74a

This affects both credential-based and guest authentication. Setting AllowGuestAccess and AllowLoopback via defaults write does not resolve it.

1. NFS loopback — nfsd checkexports explicitly reports:

exports:1: sandbox_check failed. nfsd has no read access to "/Volumes/tbkcitadel"

1. bindfs — Not available on macOS (requires Linux/FUSE).

Root cause:
macOS sandboxes both smbd and nfsd away from /Volumes/ paths on Sonoma + Apple Silicon. This is not a configuration issue that can be resolved by the user.

Request:
The fix needs to be on the Cowork side — either by expanding the VirtioFS mount configuration to include /Volumes/ paths, or by providing an alternative mechanism for mounting external volumes. This affects any user whose workflow requires working with files on external storage, which is a common scenario for users with space-constrained laptops.

Workaround:
None available on this configuration. Files must be copied to internal storage first.

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Merging into #24964 purely because I already commented on that one

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