What IT Is

TL;DR: Some of the original post has already expired. Cowork has merged into Claude, new tasks on Pro and Max run in the cloud, and there is now an official export button. Rather than publish another how-to with a hidden expiration date, here is a prompt that has Claude check the original post against current documentation and your own machine, then write you instructions that are current today.

The Carton Date Arrived Early

The original post (Keep Claude from Forgetting You When Moving to a New PC) closed by calling every AI how-to perishable goods with no date stamped on the carton. That turned out to be a short shelf life. Within about three months of publication, these changes landed:

• Cowork is now just Claude. On September 16, 2026, Anthropic began merging Cowork and chat into one Claude, rolling out to Pro and Max plans first (see Claude Cowork and chat are now one Claude). Every “open Cowork” step in the original post assumes a tab that may no longer exist.
• The cutover moved. Remote sessions were an opt-in beta when the original post went up, so local sessions kept piling up for anyone who left the default alone. The real cutover was October 6, 2026, when Anthropic removed the “Only on your computer” option and new Pro and Max tasks started running in the cloud (see Use Claude Cowork on web, desktop, and mobile). Tasks started locally before that date stay on that machine.
• There is an official export. The same support article now points to an “Export your Cowork data” card on the desktop home screen, plus a “Download task data” option for moving a single task into Claude Code. It does not explain how to restore that export on a new PC, so the manual zip from the original post still covers ground the export doesn’t.
• Memory follows the account, partly. Cloud tasks share memory with chat, and local sessions never used memory at all (from What to expect with Claude Cowork in the cloud).
• Restored Claude Code sessions may not show up. Copied session files can be readable by claude --resume and still missing from the desktop app’s sidebar (see [BUG] Desktop app fails to display/index sessions migrated from another machine (works fine in CLI)). The “readable history, not resumable” caveat in the original post applies here too.

Some of these changes will make migration easier, which is the right direction. It still shows how fast a carefully verified post goes stale.

Let the Tool Check Its Own Moving Instructions

The original post found the right folder after Claude pointed at two wrong ones. The lesson was to use Claude for the legwork and verify the destination yourself. That still applies. What has changed is that Claude can now do both halves in one pass: read the old instructions, check them against current documentation, and inspect the machine you’re leaving.

Setup is short:

1. Update the Claude desktop app on the old PC. The instructions depend on the app version.
2. Use Opus 5.5 on high effort. That is plenty for this job.
3. Turn on web search, and allow Claude to read your user profile folder when it asks. It only needs to read and list files. Don’t give it permission to delete anything.

Then paste this:

I'm moving to a new Windows PC and want to keep my Claude Desktop history, settings, and connectors.

Starting point: read this article in full:
Keep Claude from Forgetting You When Moving to a New PC


It was published July 26, 2026. Claude's products have changed since then, so treat it as a baseline to verify, not as current instructions.

Do the following, in order:

1. Summarize the article's migration steps as a short checklist.

2. Research what has changed since the article was published, prioritizing official Anthropic sources (support.claude.com, claude.com/docs, anthropic.com). Check:
   - Whether Cowork is still a separate tab or has merged into Claude
   - Whether new sessions run in the cloud or locally, and when that changed
   - Whether there is an official export, backup, or migration feature
   - Whether memory, projects, scheduled tasks, connectors, and skills follow the account or stay on the machine
   - Known issues restoring sessions on a new machine, including Claude Code sessions and Microsoft Store (MSIX) installs

3. Inspect this computer (read-only; do not delete, move, or modify anything):
   - Find where Claude Desktop stores its data. Check both %APPDATA%\Claude and %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\Claude_*\LocalCache\Roaming\Claude.
   - List the top-level contents there and in %USERPROFILE%\.claude.
   - Report whether I have local sessions under local-agent-mode-sessions, and roughly how many.
   - Show me the raw command output, not just a summary.

4. Produce a table: Article step | Still valid / Changed / Obsolete / Unverified | What's current | Source.

5. Write a current, step-by-step migration guide based on what you found:
   - Old machine: official export first, then any manual backup still needed, with PowerShell commands using my real paths
   - New machine: install, sign in, restore, reconnect folders, reinstall local MCP servers and plugins
   - Verification steps before I wipe the old machine
   - What follows my account automatically

Rules:
- Do not state a path, setting, or menu location as fact unless you confirmed it on this machine or in a cited source. Mark anything else as unverified.
- Where official sources and the article disagree, follow the official sources and say so.
- If my Windows username or drive layout will differ on the new machine, flag what breaks and how to fix it.
- Before any step that copies or zips Claude's data, tell me to fully quit Claude Desktop (tray icon, Exit) and wait for my confirmation.
- End with a list of sources as links.

What the Prompt Is Actually Doing

The prompt has three parts. It has Claude read the old instructions, check them against current documentation, and check them against your actual disk. The rules section keeps Claude honest. It can’t present a path as fact unless it saw it in a source or on your machine, and it has to show you the raw command output. That second rule is the one that caught the wrong folders the first time.

It also pauses before any copy step. Zipping live data files is still how you end up with a corrupted history, whatever the date.

The Part That Hasn’t Changed

Keep the old machine intact until a few restored sessions open on the new one. Every other detail in the original post may change again by next quarter, but that step won’t.

The original took about an hour of prompting and probing to produce. This version should take Claude a few minutes and you about fifteen, and it should still be accurate the next time something changes. Until the next change, at least.