Claude Projects Guide: How to Use Projects

Claude Projects are a way to organize related conversations, share context across sessions, and keep Claude aligned with your specific goals for an ongoing area of work. Instead of starting fresh in a new chat every time, Projects let you store instructions, uploaded files, and conversation history in a persistent, organized workspace.

ClaudeAIHub. For official Projects documentation, visit support.claude.com.

What Are Claude Projects?

A Project in Claude is a container for related work. Inside a Project, you can:

• Store custom instructions: Tell Claude how to behave, what tone to use, what format to follow, or what context to assume — and those instructions apply to every conversation in the Project
• Upload documents and files: Add PDFs, text files, code files, or other content that Claude can reference in any conversation within the Project
• Keep conversation history: Conversations within a Project are stored separately from your general chats, making it easy to return to ongoing work
• Share with collaborators: On team plans, Projects can be shared with others

Projects vs Regular Chats

Feature	Regular Chat	Claude Project
Context from previous sessions	No — each chat starts fresh	Yes — Project knowledge carries over
Custom instructions	No — you re-enter context each time	Yes — set once, applied to all Project chats
Uploaded files / knowledge	Per-session only	Stored in the Project for all conversations
Conversation organization	Linear list	Grouped inside the Project
Sharing with team	Not designed for this	Supported on Team plans
Good for	One-off tasks, quick questions	Ongoing work, recurring workflows, team projects

Who Should Use Claude Projects?

Projects are most useful when you return to a topic repeatedly and want Claude to remember context without re-explaining it every session. Common use cases include:

Writing Projects

If you’re writing a book, blog series, or long-form content, a Project stores your style guide, outline, and previously written chapters. Claude applies your instructions (tone, voice, formatting) consistently without needing reminders each session.

Business Documents and Strategy

For recurring business work — quarterly reports, client proposals, team policies — a Project stores templates, company context, and previous outputs. You can update documents and continue work from prior sessions rather than starting over.

Coding Projects

Upload relevant code files, README files, and architecture notes to a Project. Claude can reference these when you ask questions, helping it understand your specific codebase without you re-pasting context every time. Pair this with Claude Code for agentic development workflows.

Research Projects

For ongoing research — academic papers, competitive analysis, market research — upload your source documents and notes. Claude can reference all of them across multiple sessions, maintaining a coherent research thread.

Team Knowledge Base

On Claude Team plans, shared Projects let team members interact with a shared knowledge base. Upload company documentation, brand guidelines, or product specs and every team member’s Claude interactions in the Project benefit from that shared context.

Recurring Workflows

For tasks you run regularly — weekly reports, customer response templates, newsletter drafts — a Project with stored instructions means Claude behaves consistently each time without re-prompting.

How to Set Up a Project

1. Open Claude at claude.ai
2. Navigate to Projects in the sidebar
3. Create a new Project and give it a name
4. Add custom instructions — describe what Claude should know, how it should behave, and what format it should use
5. Upload any relevant files (documents, code, PDFs) that Claude should reference
6. Start conversations inside the Project — Claude will apply your instructions automatically

Tips for Effective Projects

• Be specific in instructions: The clearer your Project instructions, the more consistent Claude’s behavior will be. Include tone, format, what to include, and what to avoid.
• Keep uploaded files current: If the documents in your Project become outdated, update them so Claude uses accurate context.
• Use Projects for related work, not everything: Don’t create a single giant Project for all your Claude work. Create separate Projects for distinct domains or clients.
• Iterate on instructions: After a few sessions, review whether the instructions produce the results you want. Refine them based on what worked and what didn’t.
• Protect sensitive data: Be mindful of what you upload. Don’t store passwords, API keys, or sensitive personal information in Project files.

Privacy and Data Considerations

On personal plans (Free, Pro, Max), conversations and Project files may be used to improve Claude’s models by default. Claude Team and Enterprise plans have stricter protections — content is not used for model training by default.

For any work involving client data, proprietary business information, or sensitive materials, use a plan with appropriate data protections, and review Anthropic’s privacy policy and data handling terms. Do not upload passwords, API keys, financial records, or personally identifiable information to any AI tool.

See our Claude plans guide for a comparison of what each plan includes for data handling.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Guides

• Claude Artifacts Guide
• Claude App Guide
• Claude Plans and Pricing
• Claude for Coding
• Claude Models Explained