[BUG] Cowork task list can no longer be grouped by Project after merged Chat/Cowork Home became default (v1.26832.0)
Preflight Checklist
- [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
- [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
- [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code
What's Wrong?
Claude Desktop v1.26832.0 (released 2026-08-06) made the merged Chat/Cowork Home the default. Per that release's changelog:
Added the merged Chat and Cowork home as the default. The "New" button starts a chat or a task from one composer, and the sidebar shows Home, which lists chats and tasks together, alongside Code.
This replaced the Cowork task list in the left column, which could previously be grouped by Project. The merged Home is a single chronological feed that interleaves chats and tasks across all projects, with no grouping control I can find.
I run several Cowork projects concurrently and relied on that grouping to see, at a glance, what was in flight in each one. That single view is now gone. To reconstruct it I have to click into each project individually and hold the state in my head — which defeats the purpose of an at-a-glance list and is materially slower when work is spread across five or six projects.
Projects themselves still exist and still contain their tasks; what was lost is the ability to see them grouped in one list.
Note on scope / prior issues. There are older reports that sound similar but are a different subsystem — #53863 ("Sidebar project grouping disappeared", closed as duplicate) and #53340 ("Claude Code in Claude Desktop is Missing Project Level Folders", closed as not planned, now stale). Those concern the Claude Code tab losing project folders derived from ~/.claude/projects working directories, on Windows, in April 2026, tied to CLI 2.1.119 and the sidebarMode → epitaxy route mapping. This report is about the Cowork task list losing grouping by Cowork Project, on macOS, caused by the 2026-08-06 merged-home change. Filing separately rather than commenting on those closed threads.
What Should Happen?
Either of the following would restore the workflow:
- A "Group by Project" option on the merged Home list, or
- A setting to keep the separate Cowork task view with its previous project grouping.
A per-user toggle seems preferable to reverting the merge, since the merged Home is presumably deliberate and useful to others. The request is that grouping remain available, not that the default be undone.
Error Messages/Logs
No errors — this is a deliberate UI change, not a crash or failure. Reported as a workflow regression.
Steps to Reproduce
- On Claude Desktop for macOS prior to v1.26832.0, create several Cowork projects and run tasks in each.
- Observe the Cowork task list in the left column grouped by Project.
- Update to v1.26832.0 (2026-08-06) or later, where merged Home is the default.
- Open the sidebar.
Expected: ability to group the task list by Project.
Actual: Home shows a flat chronological list of chats and tasks across all projects. No grouping control available in the sidebar or in Settings.
Claude Model
Opus
Is this a regression?
Yes, this worked in a previous version
Last Working Version
Claude Desktop v1.25927.0 (2026-08-04) — the release immediately preceding the merged-home default. I updated on 2026-08-06 and grouping was present before that update.
Claude Code Version
2.1.202
Platform
Claude Desktop (Cowork)
Operating System
macOS 26.5.1 (build 25F80), Apple Silicon
Terminal/Shell
zsh
Additional Information
Claude Desktop version confirmed locally:
$ defaults read /Applications/Claude.app/Contents/Info.plist CFBundleShortVersionString
1.26832.0Changelog reference: https://claude.com/docs/cowork/changelog — entry v1.26832.0, dated 2026-08-06, under the final section of that release's notes.
I checked whether an opt-out exists before filing: there is no documented setting, and the relevant UI strings are not present in the local app bundle (/Applications/Claude.app/Contents/Resources/en-US.json), so I could not confirm one way or the other from the client side. If a toggle already exists and I missed it, pointing me at it would be a welcome answer to this issue.
3 Comments
Confirming on a newer build — still present in 1.28929.0
(d1a6bc), Claude for Mac. Not fixed after 1.26832.0.
The Home sidebar's Group by submenu offers exactly: Date,
Type, Unread, Status, Custom groups, None. No Project. The
filter above the list only offers All / Cowork — a type filter,
not a project one.
This has now been reported across three separate reductions of
the same capability:
disappeared from the sidebar.
well. Still open, 11 👍.
None was listed as a removal in the changelog. The latest
published entry I can find is 1.26832.0, which describes the
merged Home as purely additive.
Custom groups isn't a workaround: per #85080, "Move to group"
only exists in the sidebar row menu, so anything not already
visible in the sidebar can't be grouped at all.
Impact for anyone running several projects at once: reaching a
thread went from one click (see its project group, open it) to
three (Projects → the project → the thread) plus scanning. A
flat date-ordered list degrades precisely as session count
grows, so it hits the heaviest users hardest.
Ask: add Project to Group by, with the choice persisted. The
control already supports five other modes — this reads as
adding an option, not building a feature.
Confirming this on Windows as well — so it's not macOS-specific.
After the merged Chat/Cowork Home became the default, the Home tab's Recents "Group by" menu only offers Date, Type, Unread, Status, Custom groups, and None. The Project option is gone. Switching to the Code tab still shows Group by → Project, so the grouping only regressed on the merged Home surface.
I run many concurrent Cowork sessions across multiple businesses and grouping by project was my primary way of organizing the sidebar. "Custom groups" is a poor substitute since it has to be maintained by hand as new sessions are created.
+1 for restoring a "Group by → Project" option on the merged Home list.
Still present in 1.40609.0 (macOS, Apple Silicon), checked 2026-08-28: the Home sidebar's Group by menu still has no Project option, and no changelog entry through v1.34493.1 — the latest published — mentions the removal or a fix.
Since filing, the same capability has regressed on more surfaces: #78857 (project filter removed, still open) and #87346 (per-project chat nesting removed in a server-side rollout). And the remaining workaround — pinning projects and expanding them — is undercut by the nested list not being ordered by last activity, which I've filed as #90402.
Requesting the stale label be removed; the regression is unchanged and being independently re-reported.