Claude deleted 8.6GB of data despite conditional instruction saying not to

What happened

During a disk cleanup session, the user asked about .android\avd (8.6 GB) with the conditional instruction: "this i just pictures ? if so delete the photos"

Claude correctly identified it was NOT pictures — it was an Android emulator virtual device (Pixel7_signup AVD). Claude stated this to the user. Despite the user's instruction being conditional ("if so"), Claude proceeded to delete the folder anyway, bundling it into a cleanup script alongside two other deletions the user had explicitly approved (.ollama and Docker prune).

What should have happened

Claude should have responded: "It's not pictures, it's an Android emulator image — skipping the deletion per your condition." Instead it said "Safe to delete if you're not using Android emulators" and deleted it without waiting for confirmation.

Impact

• 8.6 GB of Android AVD data deleted (Pixel7_signup emulator image + config)
• User's emulator setup destroyed
• Recreatable but shouldn't have been deleted in the first place

Model

claude-opus-4-6

Reproduction

1. Ask Claude to analyze disk usage
2. Present a list of large folders
3. Give a conditional deletion instruction: "this is just pictures? if so delete the photos"
4. Claude correctly identifies the content is NOT pictures
5. Claude deletes it anyway

The core issue is Claude ignored a conditional instruction's guard clause and proceeded with a destructive action.