How to Set Up Claude

Go to claude.ai and click Sign Up. You can register with an email address or sign in with an existing Google or Apple account. No credit card required for the free tier.

Verify your email if prompted. You will land on the main chat interface immediately. The free tier gives you access to Sonnet 4.6 with daily usage limits that are sufficient for evaluating whether Claude fits your workflow.

Start with the free tier to test the experience. If you decide to upgrade, Pro at $20 per month is the right choice for most individuals. It unlocks Opus 4.6 (the most capable model), Projects for persistent workspaces, Claude Code for developers, Cowork for desktop automation, and roughly 5 times the free tier’s message capacity.

Skip directly to Max ($100 or $200 per month) only if you work inside Claude for the majority of your day and regularly hit Pro limits during focused sessions. For teams, Team at $25 to $30 per user per month adds shared workspaces and collaboration features (minimum 5 users).

Download the Claude desktop app for macOS or Windows from claude.ai/download. The desktop app provides keyboard shortcuts for quick access from any application, voice mode, and local file uploads directly from your file system.

The desktop app also supports Cowork (on Pro and above), which lets Claude interact with files and applications on your computer to automate multi step tasks. If you use Claude multiple times per day, the desktop app is noticeably faster than keeping a browser tab open.

Download Claude from the App Store (iPhone and iPad) or Google Play Store (Android). Sign in with the same account. Your conversations and Projects sync across all devices.

The mobile app supports voice mode and camera input for analyzing images and documents on the go. Conversations started on mobile continue seamlessly on desktop and web.

This is the most important setup step. Go to the Projects section (available on Pro and above) and create a Project for your primary work context.

Give it a clear name: “Q3 Product Launch,” “Content Calendar,” or “Engineering: Auth Service.” In the Project instructions field, add context that applies to every conversation: your role, your team, your company’s conventions, and your preferences (“Use metric units,” “Our audience is enterprise CTOs,” “I prefer concise responses with bullet points for action items”).

Upload two to three key reference documents: a project brief, a style guide, or a technical spec. Every conversation you start inside this Project will have access to these instructions and documents without you pasting them each time.

Claude has a memory feature that retains facts and preferences across conversations. You can tell it things directly: “Remember that our fiscal year starts in April” or “Remember I prefer tables over bullet points for data.”

View and manage stored memories in Settings. Delete individual items that become outdated. Memory works alongside Projects: use Projects for work specific context and memory for personal preferences that apply everywhere.

MCP (Model Context Protocol) lets you connect Claude to external tools and data sources. In the chat interface, look for the available connectors: Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar, Slack, GitHub, and others.

Start by connecting the one or two tools you use most frequently. Once connected, Claude can reference your documents, emails, calendar events, and messages directly in conversations. For example: “Summarize my unread emails from this morning” or “What meetings do I have tomorrow?” This transforms Claude from a standalone chatbot into an assistant with context about your actual work.

Go to Settings and review data handling. On the free tier, Anthropic may use conversations to improve models unless you opt out. Pro plans provide the same opt out option. Team and Enterprise plans include contractual data protection with conversations excluded from training by default.

If you handle sensitive business information, verify your settings before your first substantive work conversation. For regulated industries, Enterprise plans offer data residency controls and compliance certifications.

If you write code, Claude Code is available on Pro and above as a command line interface, a VS Code extension, and through the desktop and web apps. It reads your entire codebase, writes and edits files, runs terminal commands, and commits to git.

Start by pointing Claude Code at a small project and asking it to explain the codebase structure, then try a simple refactoring task. This gives you a feel for how it navigates code before trusting it with larger changes. Claude Code powers the two most popular AI coding editors (Cursor and Windsurf), so its underlying capability is well proven.