Projects
A project is one workstream with its own instructions, its own files, and a memory that stays inside that project. Brand, finance, a key customer, the board. Not a new app. A fence around one area of work.
Projects live in the desktop app once a folder is selected. They're also still on the web. Use a project when the context would clutter your main folder. Use a skill when the method is what you want to reuse. Use a scheduled task when it should run on a timer.
How to access it
Projects are on paid plans, and the Free plan includes a small number (the pricing page says up to five). For real work, use Pro or Team. On Team you can share a project. Check the current price at claude.com/pricing.
With your folder selected: Projects, then new. You can start from scratch, import a project you already had on claude.ai, or point it at a folder that already exists. No folder selected, and you're in plain chat, which is the wrong place for this.
The switch people miss: a project memory is not your global memory, and it's not the personal folder. If the tone file is only in the personal folder, a project that doesn't include it will write in a generic voice. Say which files it should read.
What you get
- Instructions. How to behave in this workstream. Short. The company facts still live in About Company.
- Files. The brief, the last pack, the transcripts for this customer. Not your entire drive.
- A scoped memory. What it learns here stays here.
- Tasks tied to this project, if you want a prep note before that customer's meetings.
- History of the work in this project, so you aren't scrolling one endless chat.
On the web, a project is still a good place to work from your phone, when the desktop folder isn't there. Keep the instructions aligned with the files, or the phone version will drift.
When to open one
A brand or a range. The guidelines, the words you use, recent campaigns.
A customer or a deal. The brief, the people, the last transcripts. Open it before you write.
A recurring pack. The template and last month's version. The method can still be a skill. The files live here.
Finance. The exports you're happy to put in a work tool. Not the whole ledger if policy says no. See Security, privacy and compliance.
Don't open a project for a one-off idea. An empty chat is a better place to think. A project is for material you'll come back to.
The prompt
Read every file in this project.
Summarise what's here, and which instructions you'll follow.
Tell me what's missing for [the job].
Don't change any files yet.
Worked example. A gallery kept one project per fair: the exhibitor notes, the works list, last year's follow-ups. The main folder stayed personal. Before a chase email, they opened the fair project and ran the prompt above. The gap it found was a price list from the previous year. They dropped the current one in. The email used the right prices. The project didn't try to become their whole business.
Sharing
On a Team plan, share the project with the people on that work. One person owns the instructions, the same way one person owns About Company. Everyone else adds files they were asked for.
A shared project is a bad place for About Me. That file stays in the personal folder.
Pro tips
- Kick a project off by asking what it thinks it knows. Correct that before you give it a job.
- If you're explaining the same background in every chat, it wants a project or a file. If you're repeating the same steps, it wants a skill.
- Phone access is the web project. Don't expect the desktop folder to be selected on mobile. Global instructions cover the gap, briefly.
Limits
A project doesn't connect to your apps by magic. Connectors are still connectors. A project can use them. It isn't a substitute.
Too many projects and you won't remember which one has the file. Five you open is better than twenty you created in the session.
Free-plan project caps are real. If you hit them, you're on the wrong plan for this work.
Where to start in 30 minutes
- Pick one workstream you keep re-explaining. A customer, a pack, or a brand.
- Create a project from the folder that already holds those files, or start from scratch and add them.
- Run the "read everything, change nothing" prompt.
- Fix the one gap it found.
- Write the next real email from inside the project. Don't make a second project today.