Incognito mode

What it is

Unified-experience limitation — 7 October 2026. Incognito opens the previous chat experience and cannot create files or run code. The icon walkthrough below is from the September inspection.

An incognito chat isn’t saved to your history, isn’t folded into memory and isn’t used for training. Private browsing, for Claude.

Where to find it

On desktop

The Use incognito button — a ghost icon — sits on its own in the top-right corner of the window. It is present on the inspected unified home.

On the web

Same ghost icon in the top-right of claude.ai/new. Clicking it takes you to claude.ai/new?incognito=, a full-screen mode with the sidebar hidden.

How to use it

Start a new chat outside a project.
Click the ghost icon, Use incognito, in the top-right corner.
On the web the screen changes: the sidebar goes, the heading reads You’re incognito, and a line under the composer reads “Incognito chats aren’t saved, added to memory, or used to train models.” with a Learn more link.
Chat as normal. The composer keeps the + menu, the model pill and dictation; Use voice mode isn’t offered here.
Click Exit incognito in the top right when you’re done.

Good to know

Once you leave, it’s gone. A closed incognito chat can’t be reopened — there’s no history entry to go back to.
Not inside projects. The ghost icon only appears on new chats that aren’t in a project.
Not zero retention. Chats are kept server-side for 30 days by default, or to your organisation’s retention policy on Enterprise. They’re simply absent from your history and excluded from memory and search.
Team and Enterprise note. Incognito chats are still included in organisational data exports and the Compliance API, even though they don’t appear in your own chat history.
All plans. Free, Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise.

What’s changed recently

2026-10-07 — The Use incognito entry is present on both unified homes; the resulting incognito view was not opened.
2026-09-13 — On the web, incognito is now a full-screen mode at /new?incognito= with the sidebar hidden and a heading reading You’re incognito. The previous description — a black border round the window, an “Incognito chat” label top-left and a “Let’s chat incognito” heading — no longer matches; Anthropic’s article still describes the older black-border version.
2026-09-13 — Confirmed on desktop build 1.52386.3: Use incognito sits alone in the top-right of the window in Chat mode and is absent in Cowork mode. The walkthrough video has been removed pending a re-record.
2026-05-03 — Web coverage verified; platforms.web.status promoted from stub to covered.
2026-04-18 — Incognito mode arrived on Claude for Desktop.