Scheduled tasks

What it is

Documentation update — 7 October 2026. New Pro and Max schedules run in the cloud from 6 October. Existing local schedules stay local; tasks reaching your computer still need the desktop app available.

A scheduled task is a prompt Claude runs on a cadence you choose — or on demand, whenever you press the button. They’re Cowork tasks with a timer attached. The templates Anthropic ships give the flavour: a Daily briefing, an Inbox triage, a Weekly review.

The headline change is where they run. Scheduled tasks now run remotely by default, so they fire on their cadence even when your computer is asleep or the Claude app is closed. Tasks that need something on your machine — a local folder, your browser, your screen — still need the computer awake and online, and the page says so.

Claude Code has its own, separate scheduling system called routines. That’s covered further down.

Where to find it

On desktop

Sidebar → Scheduled, the fourth row of the sidebar in Claude mode.
The page is headed Scheduled tasks, with Search scheduled tasks, a Sort by Next run control and a New task button at the top right.

On the web

claude.ai/scheduled-task, reached from the Scheduled row of the sidebar. It’s the same page, with the same starter templates.

How to use it

Start from a template

Both platforms show the same six starter templates below your own tasks. They’re a good read even if you never use them, because they show what the feature is for:

Template	What it does	Suggested cadence
Daily briefing	What needs your attention today across calendar, email and messages	Weekdays at 8:00 AM
Inbox triage	Categorise your inbox and draft replies to anything urgent	Weekdays at 8:00 AM
Meeting prep	A short brief before each meeting on your calendar — attendees, context, agenda	Weekdays at 8:00 AM
Weekly review	A Friday summary of what happened this week	Every Friday at 4:00 PM
Content ideas	Draft a few post ideas each week from the latest news in your industry	Every Monday at 9:00 AM
Monitor a topic	Watch for news or mentions of a topic, competitor or keyword	Every day at 9:00 AM

Four of the six lean on a calendar or mailbox connector, so connect those first if you want them to do anything.

Create one from scratch

New task gives you two routes:

Create with Claude — describe what you want and Claude asks clarifying questions, then builds the task.
Set up manually — fill in the task name, the prompt, the approval mode, and the frequency (hourly, daily, weekly, weekdays, or manually), plus an optional model and an optional folder.

Keep your Mac awake for local tasks

A banner on the desktop page explains the split: “Tasks set to run on your computer only run while it’s awake and online.” The Keep awake switch beside it stops the Mac idling to sleep.

Routines (Claude Code)

Routines are the Claude Code equivalent and a different thing: a saved prompt plus repositories plus connectors, run autonomously as a full cloud session with no approval prompts mid-run.

Create and manage them at claude.ai/code/routines, or in the desktop app’s Code mode under More → Routines → New routine. Choosing Cloud makes a routine; choosing Local makes a desktop scheduled task that runs on your machine with access to your files.
Three trigger types, combinable on one routine: Schedule (hourly, daily, weekdays, weekly, or a one-off at a set time; custom cron via /schedule update, minimum one-hour interval), API (POST to a per-routine endpoint with a bearer token), and GitHub event (pull-request and release events, with filters).
From the CLI: /schedule creates one conversationally — /schedule daily PR review at 9am — and /schedule list, /schedule update and /schedule run manage them. The alias /routines works too.
Routines are in research preview on Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise. They draw down subscription usage like any session, plus a daily cap on how many runs can start. Team and Enterprise owners can switch them off for everyone.

Good to know

Scheduled tasks are on all paid plans (Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise), following Cowork’s availability.
A project can carry its own tasks. A project’s right rail has an Add scheduled task control, so a task can run with that project’s context rather than in the open.
Local desktop scheduled tasks catch up after a sleep. If a local task missed runs, the app starts exactly one catch-up run for the most recently missed time and discards older ones — so a 9am task can land at 11pm. Write the prompt defensively if the timing matters.
Local tasks need the app open. The desktop app checks the schedule every minute while it’s running. Keep computer awake, in Settings → This computer → System, stops the machine idling to sleep — closing the laptop lid still puts it to sleep.
A green run status isn’t success. For routines it means the session started and exited without an infrastructure error. Open the run to see what Claude actually did.

What’s changed recently

2026-09-13 — Scheduled tasks moved to the cloud. A “New” banner on the page reads “Run scheduled tasks in the cloud. Create a task and check in from your phone or browser. Some tasks still need your computer on” — and the help centre now says tasks run remotely, on their cadence, even when your computer is asleep or the app is closed. The desktop path is Sidebar → Scheduled (this page said “Cowork sidebar → Scheduled” for two builds), and the web home is claude.ai/scheduled-task, not claude.ai/code/routines. The page gained six starter templates — Daily briefing, Inbox triage, Meeting prep, Weekly review, Content ideas, Monitor a topic — plus Sort by Next run and Search scheduled tasks. Creation is now New task → Create with Claude or Set up manually; the old /schedule-in-a-task flow this page described is gone. Routines are now documented as the separate Claude Code system they are.
2026-04-22 — Web coverage filled in.