Claude managed my Mac for half an hour. It was a wild, worrisome experience

So there I used to be, sitting in entrance of my Mac mini with the Claude app on my display, ready to do my bidding. With a good quantity of trepidation, I’d granted Claude permission to take management of my Mac utilizing its just-launched ‘pc use’ characteristic, however I used to be having a troublesome time deciding what I wished Claude to really do on my Mac.

Lastly, I made a decision I wished Claude to play chess.

“Claude, are you able to open the Chess app?” I prompted. A second later, the perimeters of my Mac’s display glowed crimson, and a pop-up warned that Claude was taking management of my pc. Then the icon for the Chess app bobbed within the macOS dock, and a chessboard appeared.

“Chess is open!” Claude reported. “Appears to be like such as you’ve already received a sport going–white to maneuver.”

That is the place I received a tingle, a kind of “one thing actually cool is occurring” tingles that I often get when making an attempt a wild new AI characteristic for the primary time. “Go forward and play a sport,” I advised Claude.

After which…nicely, nothing. I waited, and waited, and waited some extra, till I noticed that my five-hour allotment of Claude utilization was all however exhausted after barely half-hour of Claude pc use. (I’m a Claude Professional subscriber, not Claude Max.)

So should you’re questioning why I solely let Claude use its new “pc use” performance for under half an hour, that’s why. (I’ll clarify the explanations for Claude’s chess points in a second.) And whereas I look forward to my Claude utilization cooldown interval to finish, I’m left questioning, “Cool, however how and why would I truly use this factor?”

“Laptop use” for LLMs like Claude isn’t a very new characteristic–Anthropic’s been speaking about it since not less than 2024, and OpenAI’s GPT-5.4 mannequin can use computer systems when given entry to appropriate instruments. What’s new right here is that Anthropic simply rolled out pc use on the buyer Claude app, that means on a regular basis customers can strive the characteristic (which remains to be in “analysis preview”) proper now.

There are caveats to contemplate, in fact. For one, pc use on the Claude app is at the moment for Mac customers solely, much like how macOS gadgets received the primary crack at Claude Cowork. (Home windows help is “coming quickly,” Anthropic says.)

Secondly, you have to be a paid Claude Professional or Max person to strive the computer-use trick, that means free customers needn’t apply.

And third, the privateness implications of permitting Claude to manage your Mac are pretty worrying. To ensure that Claude to take cost of your mouse, it must take screenshots to see the place it’s mousing and clicking, and meaning it may well see something in your display — open PDF information (like financial institution statements), chat home windows, browser tabs, you identify it. 

You’ll discover the Claude’s “pc use” toggle within the Settings > Common menu, and also you’ll have to grant Claude macOS-level “accessibility” and “display recording” permissions. You should additionally give Claude particular entry to an app earlier than it may well open it.

However as soon as Claude does have entry to an app, it may well use its menus, sort inputs utilizing the keyboard, and theoretically do something it desires. Anthropic says that there are guardrails in place to forestall Claude from buying and selling shares, scraping facial photographs, or doing different hair-raising issues, however you must nonetheless chorus from asking Claude to fireside up Quicken.

So for my transient exams, I requested Claude to do some pretty innocuous duties. For instance, I requested Claude to open the macOS Notes app and create a brand new word that learn “Good day World.” The borders of my display glowed crimson as Claude took over (much like what occurs within the Chrome browser when Gemini begins looking) and I watched because the Notes app opened and Claude created the word and commenced typing.

I additionally tried Claude pc use through Anthropic’s new Dispatch characteristic, which helps you to management distant Claude desktop classes from the Claude cellular app. “Claude, can you employ that very same word and add a procuring record with the elements for lasagna?” I typed on my iPhone. 

A number of seconds later, Claude did simply that, typing the record up on my Mac desktop. “Carried out! The lasagna procuring record is now within the word, with all of the elements: noodles, floor beef, Italian sausage, tomato sauce/paste/crushed tomatoes, ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan, egg, garlic, onion, olive oil, and dried herbs.”

Then got here the Chess experiment, the place Claude received hung up making an attempt to maneuver a single chess piece. “The Chess app makes use of a 3D perspective board, which makes it difficult to click on exactly on items,” Claude later defined, and it additionally revealed all of the strategies it tried, together with tinkering with the Settings menu and zooming in on the chessboard. All that pondering and the next failed makes an attempt price tokens, and as soon as I noticed my five-hour utilization allotment was nearly gone, I halted the duty.

Ben Patterson/Foundry

So, fascinating, however so what? Why ask Claude to write down up a procuring record for lasagne on my desktop after I may simply as simply have it accomplish that within the Claude app, after which switch the record to Notes on my iPhone? And what’s the great of Claude with the ability to use Quicken on my desktop if I received’t permit it to take action for privateness causes?

Nicely, these are superb questions, and personally, I don’t see a Claude pc use case for me–or not less than, not but.

Who may make use of Claude’s pc talents? Good examples would come with builders or different superior customers seeking to automate repetitive duties that required clicking round a graphical desktop interface, or maybe for UI testing.

One chance I’d prefer to strive is utilizing Claude to manage Handbrake, the video conversion app I take advantage of for processing movies earlier than including them to my Plex library. That’s a tedious activity requiring numerous interface clicks, and I can see offloading that on Claude–that’s, as soon as my Claude utilization allotment refreshes.

Claude’s pc use talents do level the way in which to a future I used to be writing about final week: one the place our PCs and Macs are managed by AI brokers, and as a substitute of utilizing apps to carry out desktop duties, we merely ask our brokers to do them for us.

However as issues stand now, all of the mouse clicking, keyboard faucets, and fixed screenshot snaps required for Claude pc use (or for any computer-controlling LLM) is sluggish and costly. After which there’s the privateness points as nicely the chance of immediate injection, the place a rogue doc or web site tries to trick Claude into revealing delicate information or altering its personal “system immediate” directions. (Anthropic says Claude is educated to detect if it’s being subjected to a immediate injection assault.)

In different phrases, Claude pc use is an interesting glimpse into the long run that–for many of us, anyway–isn’t prepared for prime time.