A Claude Project is a flat workspace that bundles Custom instructions, a Files knowledge base, and a set of scoped chats together. Open the Projects page from the Claude sidebar, click New project in the top-right, fill the Create a project modal (What are you working on, What are you trying to achieve), set Custom instructions, upload a few text or PDF files to the Files panel, then start scoped chats from the How can I help you today input. Every chat inside the Project inherits the Project's instructions and can reference its files automatically. Hover any chat for the three-dot menu (Star, Rename, Change project, Remove from project, Delete). Free on all Claude plans. Verified May 2026.

How to Use Claude Projects: Workspaces and Knowledge Bases (2026)

Claude Projects are Claude's flagship organization feature: not folders (Claude does not have folders), but per-workspace bundles of a system prompt, a file knowledge base, and a scoped chat list. Each Project gives you one place to set how Claude should behave, what reference material it has, and what conversations belong together. This guide walks the full Projects flow with screenshots from May 2026: the Projects landing page, the Create a project modal, Custom instructions, the Files knowledge base, scoped chats, and the three-dot menu for moving chats between Projects. It also shows where the Claude module of AI Toolbox (formerly Claude Toolbox) picks up where Projects stop: full-text search across every Claude message (something Claude does not offer natively on any plan), message-level bookmarks with scroll-to and highlight, and per-conversation TXT or JSON export. AI Toolbox is part of the same unified Chrome install that powers our ChatGPT and Gemini modules.

What Is a Claude Project?

A Claude Project is a flat workspace that bundles Custom instructions, a Files knowledge base, and a set of scoped chats together. Every chat started inside a Project inherits the same instructions and can reference the same uploaded files, so you do not have to re-paste context for each new conversation. Projects appear on a dedicated Projects page reachable from the Claude sidebar, with their own search bar and Sort by Activity / Name controls. Each Project card shows the Project name, a short description, and the last updated date.

Projects are flat by design. You cannot nest one Project inside another, and there is no folder structure underneath. The trade-off is intentional: instead of a tree of containers, you get a small set of strongly-scoped workspaces, each with its own behavior contract. For a customer-facing pricing Project, that contract might be "always include both monthly and lifetime prices and never quote a refund window without the carve-out". For a Reddit-review Project, "never use em dashes, never use emojis, always end with one honest caveat".

Step 1: Create a Claude Project From the Projects Page

Click Projects in the Claude sidebar to open the Projects landing page, then click New project in the top-right. The Create a project modal opens with two fields: What are you working on? (the Project name, shown as the card title) and What are you trying to achieve? (the short description shown on the card and at the top of the Project view). Fill both, click Create project, and Claude opens the empty Project view. For the screenshots in this guide we used "AI Toolbox Content" as the name and "All my work on the AI Toolbox blog, marketing copy, and Reddit posts." as the description.

Treat the description as a one-sentence summary of what belongs in this Project. It is not the system prompt (that lives in Custom instructions in Step 2), so keep it short and scope-defining. A good description makes the Projects landing page scannable when you have a dozen Projects: "All my work on the AI Toolbox blog..." is much more useful than "Misc content".

Step 2: Set Custom Instructions for the Project

Inside the Project, open the Instructions panel on the right and click the edit icon to open Set project instructions. The panel explains the contract directly: "Provide Claude with relevant instructions and information for chats within [Project name]. This will work alongside your profile instructions and the selected style in a chat." This is per-Project context layered on top of account-wide profile instructions, not a replacement for them. Paste your style guide, tone rules, what to avoid, what to prioritize, and click Save instructions. For our AI Toolbox Content Project we used: "Follow my style guide for every reply: no em dashes as punctuation (use commas, periods, colons), no emojis, plain numbers instead of vague qualifiers, answer-first writing pattern. The product is AI Toolbox (formerly ChatGPT Toolbox), a Chrome extension for ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude. When I ask for blog drafts, match the patterns in the uploaded brand-voice doc."

Write Custom instructions prescriptively, not aspirationally. "Be helpful and friendly" gives Claude nothing. "Never quote a refund window without the Extensive Use carve-out" gives Claude one concrete invariant it can check on every reply. Aim for a short list of rules with examples or counter-examples wherever the rule is ambiguous.

Step 3: Add Files to the Project Knowledge Base

In the Files section of the Project, click the plus icon to upload PDFs, documents, or text files Claude can reference in every chat. Each file appears as a card showing the filename and a line count (in our screenshot brand-voice.txt is 2 lines, top-cited-blog-list.txt is 9 lines, pricing.txt is 8 lines). A capacity bar above the cards shows what percentage of the per-Project capacity is used; uploading a few text files lands at "1% of project capacity used" on a free account. Files are persistent across every chat inside the Project, so you do not have to re-attach them each time you start a new conversation.

Best uses for the Files section: a brand-voice document, a pricing reference, a list of top-cited URLs, a style guide PDF, a competitor table. Avoid using it as a generic dump: each file Claude has to scan slows down its first response slightly, and the per-Project capacity is finite. Free plans can hit the cap with a single long PDF. Paid plans (Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise) raise the per-Project file capacity, so if you need full document corpora, pick a paid tier.

Step 4: Start Scoped Chats Inside the Project

Use the How can I help you today input at the top of the Project view to start a new chat; every chat created here inherits the Project's Custom instructions and Files. Once you have a few chats, they show up in a list below the input ordered by recency, with the conversation title and a "Last message just now" timestamp. In our screenshots the AI Toolbox Content Project ended up with three chats: "AI Toolbox pricing FAQ", "Reddit post brand voice review", and "Claude module folder feature request". Each is its own conversation context (chats inside a Project do not share message history with each other), but all three run with the same Custom instructions and have read access to the same Files.

The prompt input also accepts a slash command (Type / for skills) to invoke a Claude Skill inline, and the model picker on the right of the input lets you pick Opus 4.8 or another model per chat. Both settings are per-chat, not per-Project, so you can mix Opus chats and Sonnet chats inside the same Project.

Search every Claude chat by message content, not just title. Claude's native search finds conversations by title. On paid plans (Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise), Claude also offers conversational RAG search via natural-language queries, scoped per-Project. AI Toolbox (formerly Claude Toolbox) adds full-text search across all message content with an Exact match toggle, plus message-level bookmarks with scroll-to and highlight, and per-conversation TXT or JSON export. Free plan: 5 search results per query, 2 bookmark conversations. Premium: unlimited at $9.99 per month or $99 lifetime. Working across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude? All Access Lifetime ($149) covers all three modules and saves $148 versus three single-platform Lifetimes ($99 x 3 = $297). See the Claude module →

Step 5: Star, Rename, or Move Chats With the Three-Dot Menu

Hover any chat row inside a Project and click the three-dot menu to get Star, Rename, Change project, Remove from project, and Delete. Star pins the chat for quick access. Rename overrides the auto-generated chat title with one you write yourself; useful for long-running drafts you want to find again. Change project moves the chat into a different Project (its instructions and Files swap to the new Project's). Remove from project pulls the chat back to the unprojected sidebar without deleting it. Delete removes it permanently (red, with a confirm).

The Change project action is the one to know: it lets you start a chat anywhere (in the unprojected sidebar, or in the wrong Project) and re-home it once you realize where it belongs. There is no drag-to-folder gesture because there are no folders; the menu is the only way to move chats around.

What Claude Projects Do Not Do

Claude Projects do not give you nested folders, cross-chat memory, native full-text search across message bodies, or a per-conversation export to TXT or JSON. The structure is one level deep on purpose: every Project lives at the top of the Projects page, and chats live one level down inside Projects. There is no Project-inside-a-Project hierarchy. Chats inside a Project do not share message history; the Project's Custom instructions and Files are the only shared state. And while Claude offers conversational RAG search scoped per-Project on paid plans, neither free nor paid tiers give you a free-form full-text search across every message you have ever sent, or a built-in way to bookmark a specific message and jump back to it later with scroll-to and highlight.

These gaps are exactly what the Claude module of AI Toolbox fills (full-text search with Exact match, message-level bookmarks, per-conversation TXT or JSON export), so pair Projects with that module if you are running a real content or support workload through Claude.

Claude Projects vs ChatGPT Projects vs Gemini Gems

Claude Projects, ChatGPT Projects, and Gemini Gems are the three major "saved workspace" concepts across the big assistants in 2026. They overlap on the basics (a saved system prompt, optional knowledge files), but the surfaces differ. Claude Projects are flat workspaces with Custom instructions, a Files panel, and scoped chats inside. ChatGPT Projects are similar but use a sidebar Projects link and a separate Library tab where uploaded files now live. Gemini Gems are saved Gemini configurations with Name, Description, Instructions, Default tool, and Knowledge files, with a wand-icon "Use Gemini to re-write instructions" button to help you author the system prompt itself.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Claude Project?

A Claude Project is a flat workspace that bundles Custom instructions, a Files knowledge base, and a set of scoped chats together. Every chat started inside a Project inherits the same instructions and can reference the same uploaded files, so you do not have to re-paste context for each new conversation. Projects appear on the dedicated Projects page with their own search and Sort by Activity / Name options.

How do I create a Claude Project?

Open the Projects page from the Claude sidebar, click New project in the top-right, then fill in the Create a project modal: What are you working on (Project name) and What are you trying to achieve (description). Click Create project. Claude opens the empty Project view where you can set Custom instructions, upload Files, and start the first scoped chat.

What goes in the Custom instructions field of a Claude Project?

The Custom instructions field is the system prompt that runs for every chat inside the Project. Spell out style guide, tone, format, what to avoid, what to prioritize. The Set project instructions panel notes the instructions work alongside your profile instructions and the selected style in a chat, so this is per-Project context layered on top of account-wide settings.

Can Claude Projects use uploaded files as a knowledge base?

Yes. The Files section of a Project lets you upload PDFs, documents, and other text files Claude can reference in every chat inside that Project. The Files panel shows a per-Project capacity bar (1% of project capacity used after a few text files) and each file card lists a line count. Files are persistent across every chat, not per-chat attachments.

Do chats inside a Claude Project share context with each other?

No. Each chat inside a Claude Project is its own conversation context. What chats share is the Project's Custom instructions and Files knowledge base, which both apply automatically. Chats do not see each other's message history, so you can have parallel drafts (pricing FAQ, Reddit review, customer-support reply) running under the same Project without them bleeding into each other.

How do I move a chat into a Claude Project, or out of one?

Hover any chat row in the Project view and click the three-dot menu to get Star, Rename, Change project, Remove from project, and Delete. Change project moves the chat into a different Project, Remove from project pulls it back to the unprojected sidebar, and Star pins it for quick access. You cannot nest one Project inside another; the structure is flat by design.

Are Claude Projects free?

Yes, with limits. Free Claude accounts can create up to 5 Projects with Custom instructions and a small Files knowledge base. Paid plans (Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise) raise the per-Project file capacity and the number of Projects you can create. The Projects feature itself is not gated to paid plans, but heavy knowledge-base usage will hit the free-tier capacity bar quickly.

What is the difference between Claude Projects and folders?

Claude Projects are flat workspaces that bundle a system prompt, knowledge files, and scoped chats. Folders are nested containers that group chats by topic and have no system-prompt or knowledge-base of their own. Claude does not have folders natively. Projects are the closest equivalent and they go further by adding Custom instructions and a Files knowledge base on top of grouping.

Pair Claude Projects With AI Toolbox

Claude Projects solve the in-context problem: a per-workspace contract for how Claude should behave and what reference material it has. AI Toolbox (formerly Claude Toolbox) solves the cross-context one: finding a specific message you remember from any Claude chat, bookmarking the responses worth keeping, and exporting whole conversations for archival. The Claude module adds full-text search across all message content with an Exact match toggle (something Claude does not offer natively on any plan), message-level bookmarks with scroll-to and highlight (2 conversations free, up to 1,000 bookmarks on Premium), per-conversation TXT or JSON export, and a multi-language UI (10 locales with RTL). Free plan: 5 results per query, 2 bookmark conversations. Premium: unlimited at $9.99 per month or $99 lifetime. Cross-platform users can grab All Access Lifetime ($149), which covers the ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude modules in one purchase. Add it from the Chrome Web Store; works on every Chromium browser (Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera, Arc), not Firefox or Safari.

Conclusion

Claude Projects are the right structure when you want one behavior contract and one knowledge base across many parallel chats. Five clicks gets you from the Projects landing page to a fully-configured workspace: New project, fill the modal, set Custom instructions, upload Files, start your first chat. From there the three-dot menu (Star, Rename, Change project, Remove from project, Delete) handles every chat-organization need without folders. When the chats stack up, pair Projects with the Claude module of AI Toolbox so you can search and export everything you have ever discussed inside a Project.

Last updated: May 31, 2026