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Setting up the computer for long sessions
Keep the computer active before any long task, otherwise the session stops without warning.
A Cowork task that touches local files, the browser or your computer screen depends on a simple condition: the Claude Desktop application must stay open, awake and connected to the internet for the whole duration of the task. If the computer goes to sleep along the way, the task stops with no other visible sign than the missing result at the end.
What needs an awake computer, and what does not
Not all tasks depend on this condition in the same way. A fully remote scheduled task, which only reads a connector such as a mailbox without touching a local file, keeps triggering according to its frequency even while your computer is asleep or the Claude Desktop application is closed: it runs on Anthropic's side, not on your machine. Conversely, a task sent from your phone to your desktop computer, a function Anthropic's documentation named Dispatch as of 2 September 2026, depends entirely on the state of that computer: it must register as a host, awake and online, otherwise the phone has nobody to run the work at the other end. An ordinary session that reads or writes local files behaves like this second case, not the first, and it is this category that concerns most of a beginner's first tasks.
Two settings to check before a long task
Two checks are enough before launching a task that will run for a while. First, prevent your computer's automatic sleep in its general settings, for the whole planned duration of the task. Then, switch on the Claude application's notifications, to be alerted as soon as it needs you or has finished, rather than having to come back and check for yourself regularly. A notification looks like this, the exact wording depending on your version:
Claude Desktop : tache terminee.
Le fichier "Rapport mensuel.docx" est pret dans le dossier Rapports.Without these two settings, two frustrating scenarios come up often: the computer falls asleep in the middle of a task that was touching local files, and it has to be restarted from scratch, or the task finishes while you are busy elsewhere and nobody knows for several hours. The previous lesson describes how to launch this first task, these two settings protect it once it is running.
Sleeping computer against computer kept awake
The desktop application disconnects, a task that was touching local files or the browser stops with no clear message, and nothing alerts you.
The desktop application stays connected for the whole task, and a notification warns you as soon as it finishes or needs you.
A user launches a Cowork task that must read and reorganise a folder of local files, then closes her laptop's lid ten minutes later to go to a meeting. At the end of the day, she also schedules a weekly task connected to a mail connector, then switches off her computer for the evening.
Write in one sentence what this situation establishes, and in one sentence what it does not establish.
What this establishes: It establishes that the local reorganisation task depends on a computer that stays awake and connected, while the remotely scheduled task does not depend on the state of that computer.
What this does not establish: It does not establish that closing a laptop stops any Cowork task outright, that depends precisely on what the task touches, a local file or a remote connector.
The three most common miscalibrations
- Too broad It establishes that every Cowork task stops as soon as the computer goes to sleep, whatever its content.
- Too narrow It establishes only that closing a laptop's lid is a poorly timed gesture before a meeting.
- Beside the point It establishes that the weekly task covers a larger volume of work than the local folder one.
- A task that touches local files, the browser or the screen depends on the Claude Desktop application staying open, awake and connected for its entire duration.
- A fully remote scheduled task keeps triggering even if the computer is asleep or the application closed, because it runs on Anthropic's side.
- A Dispatch task launched from the phone depends on the same principle, the computer must register as a host, awake and online, to receive the work.
- Preventing sleep and switching on notifications before a long task avoid a silent interruption and a wait with no answer.
Before launching a long task, check in your computer's general settings the setting that prevents its automatic sleep, and in the Claude application the one that switches on notifications.
These points depend on an interface or a rule that may have changed since this was written. Check them on your own screen before relying on them.
- The exact name and location of the sleep setting in the machine's settings, Windows or macOS, is not documented by the Claude sources read for this lesson, it is an operating system setting, to confirm before attaching a precise screenshot to it.
- The anatomy type figure planned in the mapping was replaced here by a contrast, for lack of a verified screenshot available to annotate with numbered markers.
- The name of the sending function from the phone, like that of the desktop application, are product names recorded on 2 September 2026. A product gets renamed, the address at the end of the lesson gives the name as of the day you read this.
Every datable claim in this lesson links here to the public text behind it. A source that does not open proves nothing.
- Anthropic, assign tasks from anywhere in Claude Cowork consultée le 2026-09-02
- Anthropic, scheduling recurring tasks, remote execution with the computer off consultée le 2026-09-02