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Dispatch combines two things:

• Remote triggers — send tasks from web/mobile to your running Cowork computer
• Scheduled tasks — run tasks on a schedule or recurring (e.g. every Monday at 8am)

The point: Claude has full access to your local files, your connectors (Notion, Gmail, Drive…), and your installed skills — exactly like a normal Cowork session. You just don't have to sit next to it.

Prerequisites

• Claude Pro, Max, Team, or Enterprise plan — Dispatch is not on the free plan
• Claude Desktop app on the latest version (macOS or Windows)
• Cowork enabled with at least one project folder selected
• Stable internet connection on the host computer

Setup in 4 steps

1. Prep the desktop app

Open the Claude Desktop app and make sure you've selected the project folder Dispatch should work in via Cowork. Connect all the connectors you need (Notion, Gmail, Drive, etc.).

2. Enable Dispatch

Go to Settings → Dispatch and turn the feature on. You need to give the computer a name (e.g. "Mac Studio Office") — that's how you'll identify it later if you have multiple devices.

3. Keep the computer awake

Dispatch only works while the host computer is on, logged in, and not asleep. In system settings:

• Sleep: Never (at least for display-off state)
• Auto-logout: disabled
• macOS: Energy → "Prevent computer from sleeping when display is off"
• Windows: Power options → set "Sleep" to "Never"

4. Test the first Dispatch task

Open Claude in your browser or phone (claude.ai) and send a test task to your Cowork computer. You should see the Desktop app pick it up and execute.

Things to watch out for

⚠️ The computer must be running. That's the most important rule. If your Mac/PC is off, asleep, or the Claude Desktop app is closed, Dispatch can't run anything. Scheduled tasks are NOT caught up later.

• Power — for a laptop: leave it plugged in, otherwise it'll eventually die
• Keep the app open — the Claude Desktop app has to be running (at least in the background)
• Keep internet stable — no internet, no Dispatch commands
• Sensitive data — Dispatch can see everything Cowork can. Think carefully about which connectors and folders are connected
• Watch time zones — for scheduled tasks: align the schedule's time zone with the host computer's
• Control output — decide where Dispatch writes results (e.g. a dedicated dispatch-output/ directory) so nothing slips by
• Watch costs — Dispatch sessions consume tokens like normal Cowork sessions. With many recurring tasks: check limits

5 use cases for Dispatch

Use case 1: process Excel data (Monday-morning sales report)

Scenario: Every Monday at 7am, Claude should read the current sales-week.xlsx from your project folder, calculate KPIs (revenue, top products, growth vs. previous week), and write the result as a Notion page in the "Weekly Reports" section.

Setup: Scheduled task, weekly Monday 07:00. Tools: Excel skill (xlsx), Notion connector.

Benefit: You come into the office on Monday, the report is already there. No more Excel-opening ritual.

Use case 2: format PowerPoint as PDF

Scenario: You're on the train to a client when you remember the pitch deck still needs to be a PDF. From your phone, you send Dispatch: "Take pitch-v7.pptx from the docs/ folder, export it as PDF with the date in the filename, upload the PDF to Google Drive in the 'Pitches' folder, and email me the link."

Setup: Ad-hoc remote trigger. Tools: pptx skill, pdf skill, Google Drive connector, Gmail connector.

Benefit: While you sip coffee on the train, the whole pipeline runs on your PC at home. The link lands in your inbox automatically.

Use case 3: review a Word document

Scenario: A client sends you a contract draft as .docx in the evening. You drop it in the contracts/ folder and Dispatch from the couch: "Check the latest document in contracts/ against my legal playbook. Mark deviations, generate redline suggestions as a revised Word file, and write a short risk briefing to Notion."

Setup: Remote trigger. Tools: docx skill, legal:contract-review skill, Notion connector.

Benefit: Instead of opening your laptop → the result comes to your phone, and you decide over a second glass of wine whether to forward it.

Use case 4: find local files on your drive

Scenario: You urgently need an old logo but can't remember which project folder it was in. From your phone: "Search the disk for all files with '3xlabs-logo' in the name or inside any folder with 'brand', sort by date, drop a copy of the 5 newest versions in dispatch-output/logo-recovery/, and send me the list with file paths."

Setup: Remote trigger. Tools: Bash / filesystem access via Cowork.

Benefit: Your Mac searches in seconds what you'd never manage from your phone. The result comes back without you being at the machine.

Use case 5: continue a project on the go

Scenario: You're at a conference, get an idea for a new company feature. You Dispatch to your Mac: "In the company repo create a new branch feat/mcp-tags, scaffold a GET endpoint in app/api/tags/route.ts that reads tags from Supabase, write a simple test file, push the branch, and open a draft PR with a description."

Setup: Remote trigger. Tools: Bash, GitHub connector, local repo.

Benefit: You come back — the branch exists, the draft PR is waiting. You just review and merge, instead of starting from zero.

Tips from practice

• Dedicated output folder — create dispatch-output/ so you see immediately what Dispatch produced
• Naming convention — have Dispatch always name files with date + task name (2026-04-07_sales-report.pdf)
• Notification loop — for important tasks: have Dispatch send a Slack/email at the end so you know it's done
• Fail-safe — for critical scheduled tasks: have Claude write a heartbeat file so you can tell if the computer was off for a day
• Test first — every new scheduled task should be run once as a remote trigger before you put it on a schedule

Next steps

• Check your Pro/Max plan
• Update the Desktop app to the latest version
• Disable sleep mode
• Enable Dispatch in Settings
• Send your first test trigger from your phone
• Create the dispatch-output/ folder
• Set up your first scheduled task (recommendation: weekly status report)