Claude Cowork Initial Thoughts + Two Surprising Use Cases

This guide introduces Claude Cowork, explains how it differs from regular Claude, and demonstrates two workflows for editing media files from your computer. You will use Claude Cowork to work in a folder, compress image copies, speed up a video, and extract audio from another video.

• AI users who want to level up without opening a code editor
• Claude Pro users considering the Max plan
• People who want to use Claude to operate on files from their computer

You will create a reusable Claude Cowork workflow for editing media files in a local folder.

• Saved copies of images with file sizes reduced by at least 50%
• A copy of a horse video at 2x speed
• An MP3 audio file extracted from the small steps video
• A basic pattern for queuing multiple file-editing tasks in Claude Cowork

• A MacBook
• The Claude Desktop app
• A Claude Max subscription ($100/month)
• Images and videos to use for the demo, either attached files or your own media files
• A folder to store the media files

• After completing the demo, you can explore Claude Cowork extensions from Settings → Extensions → Browse Extensions. The source recommends Context7 for open source documentation access and suggests starting with extensions developed by Anthropic when expanding what Claude Cowork can automate on your Mac.