Using Claude from Your Phone

Everything you have built so far has lived on your desktop. But the point of an agent is that it can work for you even when you are not sitting in front of your computer.

There are two ways to use Claude from your phone, and they are very different in power.

The first is the regular Claude mobile app. This gives you Claude in your pocket: chat, basic agent capabilities, task check-ins, and quick questions. It uses the same Claude account you use elsewhere, so your conversation history and context come with you.

The mobile app is useful, but it runs on Anthropic's servers, not your computer. That means it does not have full access to your local files or your complete desktop Cowork setup.

The second option is Dispatch, and this is the real unlock.

Dispatch lets you control your own desktop from your phone. Your computer stays on at home, and you can send a task to Claude while you are away. Your desktop then runs the workflow using your full Cowork setup, including your connectors, local files, and skills. That is the key difference:

Why Dispatch Is the Killer Feature

Dispatch combines three things that cloud agents usually do not have:

• Access to your local files
• Your full connector setup, such as Gmail, Drive, Shopify, and other connected apps
• Your custom skills and Cowork configuration

Dispatch puts all of that behind a simple phone command. You get the power of your fully configured desktop agent with the convenience of mobile access.

It is also Anthropic's answer to the cloud-agent model. Cloud agents run on someone else's server. Dispatch runs on your own machine, with your data, under your control, but triggered remotely from your phone.

The Honest Limitation

Your computer has to stay on.

If your laptop is closed in your bag, Dispatch has nothing to run on. That is the tradeoff for keeping the workflow local and under your control.

For people who leave a machine on at home or use a dedicated desktop, this is not a problem. For laptop-only users, it takes a little planning.

Where This Is Heading

You might wonder whether an agent can run completely on its own, waking up when an email arrives or a file changes, without a phone command or a schedule.

That is called event-driven automation, and it is still an emerging frontier.

Right now, the most reliable autonomous options are:

Option	How it works
Scheduled tasks	The agent runs at a set time, like every Monday at 8 AM.
Dispatch	You trigger your desktop agent remotely from your phone.

True event-based triggers, such as "run when this email arrives" or "start when this file changes," are beginning to appear, but they are still more common in developer-focused tools than in Cowork.

For most workflows, scheduled tasks plus Dispatch will cover what you need. You will explore where this is going in Chapter 5.3.