Claude Cowork scheduled task changed files while I wasn't watching

Find the snapshot from when the task ran

Start by narrowing the timeline. You don’t need to know exactly when Cowork started — you just need a rough window. “Sometime overnight,” “between 2pm and 4pm,” “while I was at lunch” is enough.

1. Open CoworkRestore from the menu bar. Click the icon at the top of your Mac screen and pick the folder the unattended task was pointed at.
2. Sort the snapshot history by time. The most recent snapshots sit at the top. Scroll to the time window the task ran in.
3. Look at the trigger badges. Each snapshot is tagged with what created it — Claude for Cowork-driven save points, Auto for the filesystem watcher catching the folder once it settled, Manual for ones you took yourself, plus Restore and Safety tags from earlier recovery steps. The rows from the unattended run are usually Claude or Auto, sitting back-to-back at the right time.
4. Use search if the history is long. The search box at the top of the history matches against snapshot messages and changed file paths. Typing part of a filename or folder name the task touched will trim the list fast.

See exactly what changed before you undo anything

Open the snapshot just after the task ran. CoworkRestore shows the full list of files that were added, modified, or deleted compared with the snapshot just before it — that’s the complete record of what the unattended run did to the folder.

• Click any file to see it before and after the task touched it, side by side. Read the change. Decide whether you want to keep it.
• Deleted files are still there inside the snapshot. CoworkRestore can put them back without you having to fish around in the Trash.
• New files Cowork created show as additions. If you don’t want them, you can undo them the same way as any other change.

If you only want to look right now and not restore anything yet, see what Claude Cowork changed in your folder walks the read-first workflow in more detail.

Restore per-file or roll the whole folder back

Once you’ve read the changes, you have two ways to recover:

• Per-file restore. Tick the files you want to undo and leave the rest alone. The good edits Cowork made stay, the wrong ones revert. Useful when the unattended run mostly worked but got a few things wrong.
• Whole-folder restore. Roll the entire folder back to the snapshot from just before the task ran. Use this when the run was wrong end-to-end and you’d rather start over than cherry-pick.

Every restore takes a safety snapshot first. That means Undo last restore is one click away until the next snapshot lands — so if you restore and immediately realise you wanted the other choice, you can put things back.

The full review-and-restore workflow lives in the hub guide: Claude Cowork changed my whole folder — how do I undo only the bad files?

Lock down the next unattended run

Whatever happened this time, the next scheduled or background Cowork task can be made boring on purpose. None of this requires you to babysit it.

• Keep the scope narrow. Point Cowork at a dedicated working folder, not your whole Desktop or your entire Documents tree. The smaller the surface area, the smaller the mess if something goes sideways.
• Make sure the files are local. If the folder lives in iCloud Drive, check that the files have been downloaded to the Mac before the task is scheduled to run. iCloud’s “Optimize Mac Storage” can leave files as stubs that aren’t really there — a recipe for confused AI runs.
• Turn on CoworkRestore for that folder first. Add the folder to CoworkRestore before you schedule the task. With the default MCP-driven mode, every Cowork task is bracketed by snapshots automatically — one before, one after — so any unattended run is already reviewable.
• Use Auto-watch mode for the edge cases. If the unattended task doesn’t go through Cowork’s normal task loop, MCP-driven snapshots may not fire. Auto-watch mode uses a filesystem watcher to catch changes once the folder settles, so you still get a save point even when the trigger path is unusual.
• Don’t pause CoworkRestore for that folder. If you pause snapshots before a scheduled run, there’s nothing to recover from. Leave it on. It’s designed to sit quietly in the background.

One more sanity check after the next run

After any unattended Cowork task, take a minute to open CoworkRestore, find the snapshot from the run, and skim the changed-files list. It’s a thirty-second habit that turns “I have no idea what happened overnight” into “I looked, here’s what changed, here’s what I kept.” Every change is reviewable. Every change is reversible. That’s the only promise that matters when you’re not in the chair.