I’ve been using Claude Desktop for pretty much all of 2025, and it’s become my primary AI interface.
Not because it’s dramatically different from the web version – it’s the same Claude Sonnet 4.5 under the hood – but because the performance difference is real, and the MCP support has considerably changed how I work. On just about everything I do.
I think having a core understanding of Claude Desktop, while on the surface seems trivial, is really importnat. I work to a setup, project instructions, project knowledge, multi-stpe prompt files, the ability to push to Github, Desktop Commander. Desktop is a deceptively powerful bit of software and, while I use Cline and Claude Code, the desktop version carries a special place in my heart.
As the dust begins to settle of teh first wave of AI models, tooling, assistants – I look at Desktop and have a firm belief that Anthropic probably see this platform as their main interface for people who aren’t pure developers and have may use cases beyond writing code. Which, by the way, you can do perfectly well in Claude DEsktop.
So, isn’t another “Claude is amazing” post. It’s a practical guide to what Claude Desktop can do out of the box. I hope that by the time you’ve read this you’ll know an awful lot more about Claude Desktop’s abilities and you’ll maybe even have forgotten about using the Web UI.
What We’re Going to Cover
- What Claude Desktop is and why you’d use it (vs sticking with web)
- Installation process for Mac and Windows
- Core features: Projects, Memory, and MCP integration
- Free vs Pro tier differences
- Model Context Protocol explained for beginners
- Desktop Extensions and how they work
- Practical workflows and actual use cases
- Common mistakes and troubleshooting
What this doesn’t cover: Advanced MCP server development (that’s a separate guide), API usage, enterprise deployment, or exhaustive prompt engineering techniques. But I promise: those guides are coming soon.
What’s Claude Desktop?
Here’s what Claude Desktop is NOT: it’s not a different model, it’s not “Claude but better,” and it’s not some revolutionary new AI. It’s literally the same Claude (currently Sonnet 4.5 and Haiku 4.5) that you access through the web, but packaged as a native desktop application.
The difference is performance and integration. Whilst the web version runs in your browser with all the overhead that entails – multiple tabs, extensions, session management (you’re using software in software that wasn’t really designed for things like MCP tool use!) – the desktop app is optimised specifically for AI conversations. Cold start time is around 3 seconds versus 10-12 seconds for web. Memory usage hovers around 200-400MB even under heavy load, compared to 1.2-2.0GB for the web version after long sessions.
One of the differentiators Desktop Extensions. These are local programmes that give Claude specific capabilities on your machine – file system access, email client integration, calendar management, that sort of thing. The web version can’t do this because browsers are sandboxed for security. Desktop Extensions run locally, which means they’re fast and can access your actual system.
As an aside, Desktop Extensions is really just a way to more easily install an MCP. Had Desktop Extensions not existed I would add that patriuclar MCP with this snippet in Claude_Config.json:
"desktop-commander": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"@wonderwhy-er/desktop-commander@latest"
]
}
Installation: Mac and Windows
Installation is straightforward, though Windows has a quirk worth knowing about.
macOS (11 Big Sur or higher):
- Download the
.pkgfile from claude.ai/download - Double-click the installer
- Drag the Claude icon to your Applications folder
I’ve had zero issues with the Mac installation. It just works.
Windows (10 or higher, 64-bit recommended):
- Download either the
.msixor.exeinstaller from claude.ai/download - Run the installer
- Complete installation
The Windows MSIX format sometimes requires enabling sideloading in your system settings. If you hit this, you’ll get a clear error message with instructions. Some antivirus software also flags the installer initially – Windows Defender has been fine in my testing, but third-party AV can be overzealous.
System requirements for heavy use are modest: 16GB RAM and a modern multi-core CPU. The AI processing happens in the cloud regardless, so your local machine is just running the interface. To be perfectly honest, the heavy loading is happening on Anthropic’s server’s, not your work laptop. I wouldn’t give this much more though for now.
Core Features Explained
Projects: Isolated Workspaces
Projects are isolated workspaces within Claude. Think of them as dedicated folders where you keep all conversations, files, and instructions for a specific task.
Here’s a practical example from my workflow: I have a Project called “MCP Server Development” where I upload relevant code files, set Project Instructions like “act as a senior TypeScript developer, use functional programming patterns,” and all my conversations stay contained there.
When I switch to my “Content Strategy” Project, Claude has completely different context – blog drafts, tone of voice style guides, audience research, technical details. By ringfencing your work into projects, the conversations don’t bleed into each other – Claude, with its own arbitrary memory has some awareness of teh context of the project. That context can be massively enhanced with project instructions.
Key features:
- Project Instructions: Persistent rules Claude follows in every chat within that Project
- File uploads: PDFs, code files, spreadsheets – all immediately accessible and can be referred to in chat
- Isolated history: Conversations in one Project don’t affect others
- Availability: Everyone gets 5 Projects for free, unlimited on Pro
Projects are amazingly useful. Once you have a promject for each thing that you do, you’ll begin to see why it’s so powerful.
Memory: Global Preferences (Pro Only)
Memory is different from Projects. Whilst Projects are task-specific, Memory is global – Claude remembers key facts about you across ALL conversations, even outside specific Projects. I’m not totally sure how to feel about this; I’d prefer memory to be project specific. But for now let’s look at what you get.
Memory knows I’m a developer working with Node.js and TypeScript, I prefer British English, and I’m documenting technical work for my blog. Claude also knows about my digital marketing work, that (for example) I work often with Shopify and WordPress and practive proper version control with Github. These preferences (usually) apply automatically whether I’m in the MCP Project or the Content Project. Not reliably, I might add – which is why its far superio not to rely on this feature and express specific project parameters via Project Instructions.
Availability: Memory is Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise only. Free tier doesn’t get it (fair enough). This is one of the key value points for the Pro subscription. I’m on Pro, it’s about $200 a month, that’s a bargain – if you’re not sure setup Cline and see what it does to your accumulating API costs. $100 a day on API calls to Sonnet 4.5 is not an unusual occurence.
“Privacy”: You have complete control. You can view exactly what Claude remembers, edit memories, delete specific items, or disable the feature entirely. Incognito chats are excluded from Memory by default. Anthropic will be learning from us all, which is just to be expected. We can only rest assured that they filetr out personal data before it’s used in any sort of training model. Again, don;t worry about this for now, just practice simple hygiene protocols. Don’t share passwords, API key secrets, your personal information…
Desktop Extensions and MCP
This is where Desktop becomes genuinely different from web Claude.
What MCP does:
The analogy I use is this: your AI is a brilliant person locked in a room. They can only talk about what they were trained on or what you type right now. If you ask “what’s in my latest email from my boss?” – they have no way to know.
MCP (Model Context Protocol) is the standardised connection that lets Claude call out to specific tools and get that information. It’s like giving Claude a secure phone line to trusted services.
Desktop Extensions are the actual programmes that run locally and use MCP. They’re mini-apps that extend Claude’s capabilities on your device. Similar to browser extensions, but for your AI assistant.
Examples of useful extensions:
- VS Code Integration: “Debug this code I’m looking at in VS Code”
- File System Access: “Find all PDF reports from last month and summarise key findings”
- Email Client: “Draft a polite rejection email using my saved template”
- Database Access: “Query the sales database and tell me which region had highest growth”
Installation is straightforward – the File > Settings > Extensions section has grown exponentially, so where we were calling for MCPs via NPX just a few months ago, many of the mainstream MCP tools are now desktop extensions. It’s a bit more convenient, but IMO you absolutely will need to manually add a few MCP servers along your journey. Here’s how, with an example adding Google Search Console’s MCP into the mix.
Claude Desktop is where you browse, install, and grant permissions. The critical step is permission management. When you install an extension, you’ll get prompts asking for specific access rights. Always verify what you’re granting. A note-taking extension shouldn’t need to read your entire hard drive.
I’m using Desktop Extensions for file system access and GitHub integration (another explainer coming soon). The performance difference between copying and pasting is just obvious. If you’re copying and pasting code or content you’re probably doing it wrong. I will get you there!
Free vs Pro: Is £90+ per Month Worth It?
Here’s my honest assessment after three months on Pro.
Free tier gets you:
- Basic chat capabilities with usage limits
- Up to 5 Projects
- Daily message limits (you’ll hit them if you’re a heavy user)
- Wait times during peak hours
- Access to Sonnet 4.5 and Haiku 4.5
- You’ll hit limits pretty much immediately
Pro tier (£15/month) adds:
- 5x more usage than free
- Priority access during peak times
- Unlimited Projects
- Memory feature
- File creation/editing capabilities (Excel, PowerPoint, Word, PDF)
- Remote Integrations (Google Drive access, etc.)
Max tier (£90-180 per month) just gets you everything and a far more usuable usage allowance. Start low – I gaurantee you’ll just upgrade account tier by account tier.
Why Max? I hit the free tier limits consistently within about two hours of serious use. For me, the Pro subscription is justified purely on usage capacity, as I’m using Claude Desktop for 8 to 12 hourts a day. The Memory feature is useful but not transformative. There are far better memory MCPs than Claude’s native memory. For now. File creation is extremely handy – but with oen caveat – I only use Desktop Commander for file read/write creation and terminal commands. I don’t think the Claude verion of this is good, at all. In fact I think it’s intrusive and bad!
If you’re a casual user (a few questions per day), stick with free. Although be aware if you;re asking general knowledge questions you may be well advised to use my Gemini MCP here. Claude is not a search engine and will present facts on occasion that ought to be checked as a bare minimum. I use Gemini to fact check my work!
If you’re using Claude for actual work – research, coding, document creation – Pro pays for itself in time saved.
Practical Workflows
Research and Documentation:
I use Claude Desktop for technical research because I can upload documentation files, API references, and examples directly into a Project. When I’m documenting a new MCP server, I upload the existing code, set Project Instructions for my technical writing style, and work through the guide iteratively.
The desktop app’s stability matters here. Long research sessions don’t suffer from the browser tab refresh issues or memory bloat that web Claude occasionally exhibits.
Coding Assistance:
With file system access through Desktop Extensions, I can ask Claude to “analyse the TypeScript files in ./src/tools/” and it reads them directly. This is significantly faster than manually copying code into the chat.
The Claude Code feature (available in both desktop and web, but desktop has local sandboxing) is genuinely useful for multi-file edits. It’s not perfect – you still need to review everything – but it handles refactoring tasks that would be tedious to do manually.
As an aside the Context7 MCP is magnificent to bring Claude’s knowledge cut off into the current universe. We’ll look at Context7 when I show you my coding with Claude Desktop post (the purists are going to hate that).
Content Creation:
My content workflow uses Projects extensively. Each website I work with gets its own Project with uploaded research, style guides, and draft iterations. Memory ensures Claude knows my British English preferences and technical focus without me repeating it. Project instructions know my writing style, prompt locations (I save them as files and iterate on them)
For all of these operations Desktop Commander is my right hand person. Noone should ignore giving Claude some basic filesystem access. Don;t worry, it won’t delete your hard drive – you can ringfence which directories it can read/write in.
What Claude Desktop Can’t Do (Current Limitations)
Claude’s knowledge cutoff is currently January 2025. It doesn’t know about events, news, or updates after that date. This includes software updates, API changes, current events – anything that happened after the training data was finalised. This is why we have the Gemini MCP. Gemini MCP has search grounding enabled meaning you can see teh sources it’s based the answer on.
For current information, you need to provide it (upload documents, paste in text) or use web search tools. Desktop Claude doesn’t automatically search the internet like some other AI tools.
No access to your personal data: Despite Desktop Extensions enabling local file access, Claude doesn’t automatically know what’s on your computer. You have to explicitly grant permissions and point it to specific files or directories. This is intentional for privacy, but it means you can’t just ask “what’s in my Downloads folder?” without setting up file system access first.
Rate limits still apply: Even on Pro, there are daily limits. They’re generous, but if you’re running hundreds of queries per day, you’ll eventually hit them. This can be over come with savvy prompting technique. When I see someone publicy complaining about a 200k context window, see this as an indicator they don’t have a grip on how top operate an AI assistant. Yet.
Context window management: Long conversations can still cause Claude to lose track of earlier context. The desktop app has context compaction features but I frequently ask Claude to write a detailed handover prompt so we can continue into a fresh chat. My prompt library, with several quite lengthy agent tasks, are design to track token use (or approximate it, more accurately) and tell me when it’s time to create ahandovber. It even produces me teh handover prompt!
Common Mistakes Beginners Make
1. Lazy prompting leading to context overflow
Your chat history consumes tokens and affects performance. When you’ve finished one task and are starting something completely different, start a new thread. It’s instant and prevents Claude from getting confused by irrelevant history. If you’re still working on teh same goal – create a handover prompt for anew thread.
2. Confusion between chat and Claude Code
The standard Claude Desktop chat interface is excellent for questions, analysis, and guidance. Claude Code (the separate tab) is for actual code generation and file editing. Beginners often expect the chat interface to directly edit their files, which it won’t without Desktop Commander.
3. Over-engineering simple prompts
If you need three lines of Python code, ask for three lines. Claude will happily generate an enterprise-level solution with error handling, logging, and configuration management if you’re not specific. Constrain the scope in your prompt. Ask Claude to use Context7 to check on a universally accepted solution – 99.9% of the time you are not reinventing the wheel.
4. Ignoring permission prompts
Desktop Extensions require explicit permissions. When you install an extension and it asks for file system access, you need to approve it. Beginners sometimes click through these prompts without reading, then wonder why the extension doesn’t work or why chant hasn’t progressed.
5. Expecting automatic updates from web version
Projects and conversations don’t sync between web and desktop. If you start work in web Claude, you can’t seamlessly continue in desktop Claude. They’re separate interfaces to the same model, not a unified system.
6. Not reading along and monitoring Claude’s decision making
Claude can often choose teh hard way to fix something. Building complex logic with many rules to exclude data, when a simpler inlcude just this data would save a lot of work. You have to read along and take the opportunity to learn from it.
Troubleshooting Common Issues
Installation failures (Windows):
If the MSIX installer fails, check if App Installer is disabled in your system settings. Some corporate Windows installations disable sideloading by default. The .exe installer is an alternative that usually works around this.
UI goes blank when minimising/restoring:
This is a known bug. If the window goes blank after minimising and restoring, you need to fully restart the application. It’s annoying, but it’s the current workaround whilst Anthropic fixes it.
MCP extensions not working:
First, verify you’ve granted the necessary permissions. Second, check the application logs (usually in Settings → Help → View Logs). Extension failures are typically permission issues or the extension itself encountering an error. Re-installing the extension often fixes it. If you’ve malformed the MCP config JSON, you’ll get a json error at startup.
Hitting Maximum Context window
If Claude hits the content limit of a thread, go back a few chats and edit with “Please create a handover promple so tha twe can continue this thread, include working directory and all references tha twould be critical to Claude continuing. For ongoing work that requires persistent context, use Projects and upload relevant files rather than pasting everything into chat history.
Performance issues:
Desktop Claude is generally fast, but if it’s slow, check your system resources. The app itself is lightweight, but if you’re running dozens of other applications, performance suffers. Closing unnecessary programmes helps. I’m running an i7 14th gen CPU on my workstation with 64gb ram – I practice app hygiene all teh time: if you’re not using it why is it running. Looking at you Apple Mac people!
Also, backend service outages happen. If Claude is consistently slow or throwing errors, or if it’s just making stupid decisions, check the Anthropic status page before troubleshooting locally. When that happens I go do something lese for an hour isntead of getting mad.
To Finish
Claude Desktop isn’t revolutionary – it’s the same Claude you know from the web. The desktop app is faster, uses less memory, and offers Desktop Extensions / MCP support for local integration. That’s the entire value proposition.
For casual users, the web version is fine. For heavy users – developers, researchers, content creators – the performance difference and local integration make desktop worth installing. Whether Pro is worth the money (it is) depends entirely on your usage. I justify it based the massive time saving and no longer needing freelance support of any sort, but if you’re only using Claude occasionally, free tier is adequate, and you stick with those Upwokers…
The Projects feature is genuinely useful for organisation. Memory is nice but not developed enough to be essential. Desktop Extensions are the real differentiator if you need local tool integration.
Install it, use Projects to stay organised, handover with continuation prompts, and verify permissions for Desktop Extensions. That’s the practical advice almost a year of use. Enjoy!