Claude Settings Explained: Everything You Need to Know
Most people use Claude for months without opening the settings menu. That's a mistake. A few of the options in there genuinely change how useful it is — and most of them take thirty seconds to set.
Most people use Claude for months without ever opening the settings menu. That is a shame, because a few of the options in there genuinely change how useful Claude is. Memory, personal instructions, connectors and usage controls all live in settings, and each one solves a real problem, like having to re-explain who you are at the start of every chat.
This guide walks through Claude's settings as they appear in the desktop app in July 2026, because that is where the full set lives. The desktop app includes everything the web version has plus a whole extra layer: Claude Code, Cowork, computer use and local extensions. If you are on the web version at claude.ai, most of the core sections here still apply, and I have flagged the differences at the end.
To get there in the desktop app, click your initials in the bottom left corner and choose Settings. You will see a sidebar with three groups: Settings, Desktop app and Customize. Memory now has its own dedicated entry at the bottom of the Settings group, below Claude in Chrome. We will go through everything in order.
Members only
Sign in to keep reading. It's free.
No account yet?