Claude in Chrome and the Built-in Browser

Plenty of work never touches a file. It lives in web dashboards, supplier portals and admin pages. For that, Claude can use a browser: open sites, read pages, click, type and fill in forms. Claude prefers a connector when one exists. Anthropic's example: pulling messages through the Slack connector takes seconds, while working through Slack's interface takes much longer and is more error-prone. The browser is for everything that has no connector.

Two browsers, two jobs

If you already use Claude in Chrome, it stays your default for web tasks in Cowork; otherwise Cowork uses the built-in browser. Switch any time under Settings > Cowork > Preferred browser. The built-in browser lives in the desktop app, so the app has to be open and online for Claude to use it, even though the task itself runs in the cloud.

Logins are access

The first time the built-in browser opens, it offers to import saved logins from your browser, site by site. Banking, email and single sign-on sites start unchecked. Anything you sign in to inside the built-in browser stays available to Claude in future Cowork sessions on that computer, so be deliberate, especially with sites that handle money or personal information.

Claude in Chrome is different: it works in your Chrome, with your real sessions. Install it from the Chrome Web Store with Add to Chrome, sign in, and pin it; it doesn't work in other Chromium browsers or on mobile. Opening its side panel starts a Cowork session that can see the page you're on, including pages behind a login, and that session is saved to your history. To understand a page, Claude takes screenshots of the tabs it works in, and whatever is visible becomes part of the conversation. Anthropic suggests a separate Chrome profile without your sensitive accounts.

Site permissions

Both browsers run the same safeguards: Claude asks before acting on a site for the first time, high-risk sites are blocked, and every action is checked against what you asked for. The Chrome side panel starts in Automatically approve. In Manually approve, Claude asks before each action and offers Allow all for this website, Allow this time only or Deny. Even on a site you've fully allowed, it asks before downloading a file, entering sensitive information or granting an authorization, and before permanently deleting emails, files or messages.

Some things Claude in Chrome won't do in any mode: make purchases or financial transactions, create accounts, handle credit card or ID data, execute trades, download files from untrusted sources, or carry out instructions it finds in emails or on web pages. Treat that list as a floor, not a reason to relax.