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Putting Claude to work on real files5 minFoundation

Connectors, a direct link to a piece of software

A connector links Claude to an external service after explicit authorisation, and that authorisation holds beyond the current conversation, right up to scheduled tasks.

A connector is an authenticated link between Claude and an external service, a mailbox, a calendar, a file space, with no gateway to code yourself. Once configured, Claude reads and acts in that service when you ask it to in a conversation, but also from a scheduled task you have created yourself: Anthropic's documentation, as recorded on 2 September 2026, states that these tasks have the same connected tools and run remotely, even with the computer switched off and the application closed. Authorising a connector therefore commits you beyond the current conversation.

Two similar-looking connectors can differ on the essentials

A connector's reading capability and writing capability are defined service by service, and two connectors in the same category can have very different write permissions. The clearest example is a mailbox: one connector may be limited to preparing a draft without ever sending it, while another mailbox connector may send directly on your behalf. Neither rule can be guessed from the other, the precise connector must be checked before promising a colleague that a particular action will be possible.

Administrator approval, a door you do not cross alone

Two things are easily conflated here, and mixing them up wastes time. What you choose yourself are the connectors Claude may use among those offered to you. What does not depend on you is the list of what is offered to you: on an organisation account, it is set by an administrator, organisation wide on some plans, group by group on others. In other words, if the connector you want already appears in your interface, activate it; if it does not appear, no action on your part will make it appear. Gathering your needs into a single list, rather than requesting one connector, waiting, then requesting a second, reduces the number of back and forths and gives the administrator an overview to decide on all at once.

Connecteurs souhaités pour le pôle Support :
- Messagerie (lecture et brouillon)
- Agenda partagé (lecture seule)
- Espace de fichiers partagé (lecture et écriture)

Once the connector is active, access is revoked wherever it was granted. A revocation holds for the future: it cuts off future reads and actions, it removes nothing of what has already been read, summarised or retained elsewhere. The previous lesson already applies this same cautious logic to skills and plugins: any new extension, whatever it is, gets checked before being activated, not after.

Figure 1

From the idea to an active connector

01
Spotting a concrete need
A document or exchange keeps coming up and would benefit from being read directly by Claude.
02
Naming the matching connector
Identify the precise service targeted, without relying on a neighbouring service that looks similar.
03
Grouping the request
List every connector the team wants in one go, not one at a time.
04
Passing it to the administrator
Send the grouped list, never installing a connector yourself.
05
Checking the active connector
Confirm its real write capability before entrusting it with a task that writes something.
The diagram follows a connector request from the identified need through to checking it once active, passing through a grouped request rather than a series of separate requests.
Calibrate it yourself

An HR team wants Claude to read the messages in a shared mailbox and prepare template replies, with every send still subject to human validation. It passes the administrator a grouped list of two connectors, mailbox and shared calendar. The administrator approves both the same day and sets the mailbox connector to require validation for every send.

Write in one sentence what this situation establishes, and in one sentence what it does not establish.

What to remember
  • A connector links Claude to an external service after explicit authorisation, and that authorisation also serves scheduled tasks, remotely and without you being in front of the screen.
  • Two connectors that look alike can have very different write capabilities: check the precise connector, never infer its capabilities from another that looks similar.
  • You choose the connectors Claude may use among those offered to you; it is the list of what is offered to you that the administrator sets.
  • Grouping your needs into a single written request reduces the back and forths with the administrator, rather than requesting one connector after another.
  • Revoking a connector cuts off future access, at the same place it was granted, but does not remove what has already been read.
Do this now

Write the list of connectors your team would need, with what you want each one to do, then send that grouped list to your administrator in a single request.

What still needs checking

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 detail of a connector's approval screens and their possible states, along with whether these settings look identical on Cowork desktop, web and mobile, is not confirmed by the September 2026 record for this text: to be checked directly in the interface before any promise made to a colleague.
  • Systematically grouping connector requests into a single submission is a practical recommendation from this course to reduce back and forths with the administrator, not a rule imposed by Anthropic.
Check the source

Every datable claim in this lesson links here to the public text behind it. A source that does not open proves nothing.