[BUG] Cowork: Folder does not support UNC under Windows

Found 2 possible duplicate issues:

1. https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/41687
2. https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/41914

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Thanks for passing along the issue @mrsilva

We're deploying Claude Code org-wide (89+ employees across 10 departments) using a shared network drive with cascading CLAUDE.md files (org → department → person). The entire architecture depends on Cowork being able to open folders on the shared drive.

This is hugely problematic for us as well.

Also, both Win11's subst and symlink are being resolved to the UNC path, so we nave no workable resolutions for the team.
Cowork simply cannot access the project folders.

Win10 SMB to local NAS: "UNC paths are not supported: \path"

Same issue for me, actually no workarroud.
Mapping the UNC doesn't fixe the issue, the map drive is automaticlay shown as UNC.

UNC can be defined or selected as folder in cowork, but not used.
Error msg: "UNC paths are not supported: \\servername\shared-folder"

+1 - same bug with WSL folders. Connecting \\wsl$\Debian\... or \\wsl.localhost\Debian\... aborts the bash sandbox at boot with UNC paths are not supported: \\.... Every call fails before any command runs. Only fix is disconnecting every UNC folder.

Same issue for me on Claude 1.3883.0 (93ff6c) 2026-04-21T17:24:01.000Z running on Windows 11 as host and WSL ubuntu 24.04 as client. This is a bummer because Codex App can actually access folders inside WSL no issue. I need Claude desktop dearly as it's cowork can work on multiple-folders at once on a single project. Please fix this team Claude.

+1 — hitting this exact error trying to mount \\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu\home\<user> from Cowork on Windows. My day-to-day workflow lives entirely inside WSL (uv, ruff, mypy, Django projects), so the only workaround right now is to copy files out to a Windows path and back, which defeats the purpose of using Cowork as an assistant on real project files.

A couple of things that would help, in rough priority:

1. At minimum, allow \\wsl.localhost\<distro>\... and \\wsl$\<distro>\... UNC paths to be mounted as a Cowork directory (even read-only as a first step).
2. Even better, detect WSL UNC paths and offer a "reopen in WSL" remote mode like #49933 describes, so the sandbox runs Linux tools against the real Linux filesystem instead of going through the SMB share.

Lots of devs on Windows use WSL as their primary dev environment — landing this would unblock that whole audience for Cowork.

New subscriber. The first thing I tried to do was connect to my Obsidian vault on local share. This is making me regret not choosing ChatGPT.

New subscriber. The first thing I tried to do was connect to my Obsidian vault on local share. This is making me regret not choosing ChatGPT.

You can still have it read and write to obsidian. I do that.

+1
Same here

Helpful bump. Mapped UNC (sshfs in this case, but with an already-authed mapped drive win11 -> linux) still fails here. Rather annoying..

I works with Google code CLI (by using a network drive mapped to the UNC path). Is it new?

This is for Claude Cowork (Windows)

+1

Another one for Claude Cowork (Windows)

Company wide issue, was working fine a few versions ago.

+1 — I need this for a QNAP TS-464 NAS. My use case is pointing Cowork at an SMB share (a media directory) that contains a large amount of large files, so copying everything to a local folder first isn't feasible. Please add support for UNC/SMB network paths (\\server\share) as Cowork workspace folders on Windows. Mapping the share to a drive letter doesn't help either — it gets resolved back to a UNC path and fails with "UNC paths are not supported".

FYI: I had to leave Claude and switch to Codex to make this work. It's
takes a little fiddling around but you can get it to work with OpenAI's
stuff.

On Tue, Jul 7, 2026, 5:33 PM hookmt @.***> wrote:

hookmt left a comment (anthropics/claude-code#45297) <https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/45297#issuecomment-4909233232> +1 — I need this for a QNAP TS-464 NAS. My use case is pointing Cowork at an SMB share (a media directory) that contains a large amount of large files, so copying everything to a local folder first isn't feasible. Please add support for UNC/SMB network paths (\server\share) as Cowork workspace folders on Windows. Mapping the share to a drive letter doesn't help either — it gets resolved back to a UNC path and fails with "UNC paths are not supported". — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/45297?email_source=notifications&email_token=AKMYTMXA2U5XXZOVRRA3HK35DVUBBA5CNFSNUABFM5UWIORPF5TWS5BNNB2WEL2JONZXKZKDN5WW2ZLOOQXTIOJQHEZDGMZSGMZKM4TFMFZW63VHMNXW23LFNZ2KKZLWMVXHJLDGN5XXIZLSL5RWY2LDNM#issuecomment-4909233232>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AKMYTMR5GXS2NO3R2OYIDIT5DVUBBAVCNFSNUABFKJSXA33TNF2G64TZHM4TGNZSGUZTINZVHNEXG43VMU5TIMRSGU3TQOBQHAZKC5QC> . Triage notifications, keep track of coding agent tasks and review pull requests on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS <https://github.com/notifications/mobile/ios/AKMYTMRJB3OVORQS7LQIH3L5DVUBBA5CNFSNUABFM5UWIORPF5TWS5BNNB2WEL2JONZXKZKDN5WW2ZLOOQXTIOJQHEZDGMZSGMZKM4TFMFZW63VHMNXW23LFNZ2KKZLWMVXHJKTGN5XXIZLSL5UW64Y> and Android <https://github.com/notifications/mobile/android/AKMYTMXLZOXWAEME6MN73635DVUBBA5CNFSNUABFM5UWIORPF5TWS5BNNB2WEL2JONZXKZKDN5WW2ZLOOQXTIOJQHEZDGMZSGMZKM4TFMFZW63VHMNXW23LFNZ2KKZLWMVXHJLTGN5XXIZLSL5QW4ZDSN5UWI>. Download it today! You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: @.***>

For teams and enterprises we need users to be able to cowork in the same folder.

+1

WSL2 folders broke after tasks started running in the cloud — workaround: disable "Run new tasks in the cloud" (file tools only)

My workflow: my project folders and repos live inside WSL2 (Ubuntu-24.04) at ~/, and I connect them to Cowork tasks as \\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu-24.04\home\<user>\... folders. This worked — Cowork's file tools could list, read, and edit those folders directly.

After a recent update, that same setup broke. New tasks began running in the cloud, and there the connected WSL folders are unusable: every file operation fails with UNC paths are not allowed: \\wsl.localhost\..., and the session reports no folders connected at all, even though they show as connected in the UI. The folder picker also silently no-ops in some cases (clicking "Add folder" on certain paths just does nothing, with no error).

The workaround for me was Settings → Cowork → "Run new tasks in the cloud" → off. With tasks running on my computer, the WSL2 folders are reachable again via the file tools (list/read/write/edit).

Note this is only a partial restoration, though: even in on-computer mode, bash commands and terminal access don't work normally against those folders — only the file tools do. So anything shell-based (git operations, running scripts over the folder, document-processing skills that shell out) is still broken on WSL folders in both modes.

Suggestions: surface an error when a connected folder is unreachable in a cloud session instead of failing silently at connect time; document that WSL/UNC folders currently require on-computer mode; and ideally, WSL-aware folder support like the Code tab already has (https://code.claude.com/docs/en/desktop-wsl), so shell access works too.

Environment: Windows 11, WSL 2.7.11, Ubuntu-24.04 (WSL2), Claude for Windows 1.24012.11 (09114b).