### Preflight Checklist - [x] I have searched [existing issues](https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues?q=is%3Aissue%20state%3Aopen%20label%3Abug) 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? On 2026-09-22 an automatic update to Claude Desktop on Windows moved my Cowork sessions onto Anthropic's servers. There was no warning and nothing in the

[BUG] [Claude Desktop] [Cowork] Automatic update moved sessions to the cloud; file tools act on copies and device_commit_files leaves old bytes

Status Open

Maintainer reply None cached

Activity 3 comments · opened Sep 22, 2026

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?

On 2026-09-22 an automatic update to Claude Desktop on Windows moved my Cowork sessions onto Anthropic's servers. There was no warning and nothing in the patch notes, and there is no option to run sessions locally again.

My setup assumes sessions run on my machine: instruction files that name D:\ paths, ledgers edited with the Edit tool, 18 local MCP servers, and 38 scheduled tasks under C:\Users\dougw\Claude\Scheduled. My startup check, which confirms the Read tool can open my CLAUDE.md, failed and stopped the first session.

In the cloud session, Read, Edit, Write, Glob and Grep act on a cloud copy. Only the root CLAUDE.md of the connected folder is copied in. An edit to a staged copy never reaches my disk, and nothing warns that it didn't. Edit refusing when a file changed on disk was my concurrency guard for ledgers that two sessions edit at once. It no longer covers my files, so I had to write my own.

What Should Happen?

A change to where my work runs is a breaking change. It should ship with advance notice and an opt-out. I need the option to run sessions on a machine I choose, and file tools that refuse a staged copy instead of editing it silently.

Error Messages/Logs

Read on D:\OneDrive\Documents\Claude CoWork\CLAUDE.md in the cloud session:
File does not exist. Note: your current working directory is /home/claude.

Steps to Reproduce

On Windows 11 with Claude Desktop 2.2553.13, open a Cowork session with a local folder connected (mine is D:\OneDrive\Documents\Claude CoWork).
2. Ask Claude to Read a file at its Windows path in that folder. Result: "File does not exist. Note: your current working directory is /home/claude." The session is running in the cloud.
3. Stage the file with device_stage_files and Edit the staged copy under /mnt/user-data/uploads/. The file on disk is unchanged and nothing says so.
4. Commit a changed file with device_commit_files over a path that already exists. It reports "written" and the file's mtime updates, but the file on disk keeps its old bytes (sha256 and size both old). This happened on 2 of 3 overwrites on 2026-09-22. Commits to new paths landed intact every time.
5. Look in Settings for a way to run new sessions locally. There isn't one.

Claude Model

None

Is this a regression?

Yes, this worked in a previous version

Last Working Version

Claude Desktop build installed before the 2026-09-22 automatic update

Claude Code Version

Claude Desktop 2.2553.13 (Electron 44.2.0), Cowork. Not the Claude Code CLI.

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

Windows

Terminal/Shell

Other

Additional Information

Related: #75700 reports the same move to the cloud and gives turning OFF "Run new tasks in the cloud" in Settings as the workaround. On my build that setting no longer exists, so the workaround is gone.

Two tools my instructions call are also missing from the cloud session: list_scheduled_tasks and the session transcript reader.

What I need:

Bring back the option to run sessions on a machine I choose.
2. File tools that refuse a staged copy instead of editing it, and a commit that writes what it reports.
3. A changelog listing tools that are removed or replaced.
4. An answer on whether local scheduled tasks under C:\Users\<user>\Claude\Scheduled still fire.

View original on GitHub ↗

3 Comments

wonderfjord · 22 days ago

+1, and it's not Windows-only: same on macOS (Claude Desktop, 2026-09-22).

I can't find any setting to run conversations locally. The only local control left that I can find is "Require this computer" on scheduled tasks, set at creation. Nothing equivalent exists for regular conversations.

Where my work runs should be my decision, not something an update changes silently. Please bring back:

A global setting to run sessions on my computer.
A per-conversation override.
A clear indicator of which mode each conversation is in (see #94798).

dwrightii · 21 days ago

Update, 2026-09-23. Further defects from a second day of linked cloud sessions:

Every read, search and edit of my own files now crosses the device link, and it's slow. A grep across my workspace took 81 seconds; one across four folders took 17. A search that runs past about 40 seconds drops the connection and has to be relaunched as a background job. Changing one file on my disk takes a stage, an edit, a commit to a new filename, a move and a checksum, where it used to take one Edit call.
My live artifacts broke: a cloud session can't update one made on the desktop. Four were rebuilt at new URLs and their refresh tasks repointed.
The sidebar has no way into a scheduled task's chat.
A session started at 06:17 Central. My CLAUDE.md was written into it at 06:21:41 and first reached the model with my second message, so the first reply ran without it. Four minutes to deliver one 40 KB text file is unacceptable. After the file was edited on disk around 06:40, the copy vanished and the session reported my instructions as no longer present.
get_device_info returned connectedFolders: [] while my folder was connected and selected.
A shell call through the device link returned "did not respond within 60s" for a command that had completed. A retry would have run it twice.
Mid-session, auto mode's safety check blocked a one-line text edit to my own feedback file. It said the block came from earlier conversation content, not the edit, and would apply for the rest of the session. The work stopped until I switched the session to manual approval, which cleared it.

Added to what I need:

CLAUDE.md loaded before the first turn and kept for the whole session, and an accurate connected-folder list.
Artifacts and scheduled-task chats that survive the move.

grahamgourlay-prog · 20 days ago

Another Windows data point, plus a partial workaround that may help others.

Environment: Windows 11 Pro 25H2, Claude desktop 2.9939.2 (Microsoft Store/MSIX build), Max plan.

Same symptom as the original report. After the update there is no Cowork section in Settings and no "Only on this computer" option for conversations. A new conversation runs in the cloud: pwd is /home/claude and my PC is only reachable through the device link.

What I tested on 2026-09-24:

A scheduled task created by hand from the Scheduled page, with the "Only on this computer" toggle ON, still runs locally. pwd was /sessions/<name>, the mcp__cowork__ and mcp__scheduled-tasks__ tools were present, no remote-devices tools, and GitHub was reachable directly with no proxy. It wrote to my connected folder and the file on disk matched.
Follow-up messages typed into that task's run conversation also run locally. So a Manual task with the toggle ON can act as a local session. It works, but it is an extra step every time.
A scheduled task created by Claude from a cloud conversation, where the approval card said "Runs on: Your computer", actually ran in the cloud (Linux container, hostname vm). It saw my PC through the link but connectedFolders was empty, so it could not touch any files. The card gave no way to choose local or cloud. Separately, the run of another task Claude created from that conversation showed in the task page but could not be opened from the desktop app.
A cloud conversation cannot list, read or edit my local scheduled tasks. The local task store cannot be granted as a folder.
The desktop Code tab still offers Local per session and runs natively on Windows, with Claude able to create and edit its own local scheduled tasks. I am moving my interactive work there, but my existing Cowork tasks live in a separate store and would each need porting.

The per-task toggle surviving suggests local execution is still supported underneath. What would fix this for me:

bring back a global "run conversations on this computer" setting, or a per-conversation choice like the Code tab has
let tasks created by Claude choose local execution and carry the connected folders
say in the changelog when the execution location changes (nothing in claude.com/docs/cowork/changelog mentions it)