10 Life Hacks Every Claude User Should Know
Claude is one of the AI platforms at the forefront of the generative AI revolution: it has become the preferred choice for many programmers and is leading the movement toward agent-based AI capable of performing actions for users . It’s also incredibly easy to use, even opening with a warm and familiar greeting (“back at it,” as I last downloaded it). Regardless of how you use Claude, there are numerous features and tools worth exploring to further explore its AI capabilities. Whether it’s searching Claude within your email, customizing Claude’s response style, or using Claude in a web browser, there’s plenty to explore beyond the main command prompt.
Connect Claude to Gmail to manage your email.
Connectors allow Claude to connect with other apps, and there are many available, including Spotify, Canva, Tripadvisor, and Uber. You can add a new connector to Claude by clicking the + (plus) button in the lower left corner of the request window, then selecting Connectors > Add Connector .
The Gmail connector is especially useful. If you grant Claude permission to access your email, the AI can perform tasks like compiling a summary of your daily messages or identifying emails that require a response. For example, you could try asking, “Which sender do I most often leave unread in my Gmail account?” or “Find emails in Gmail from the last 30 days that seem to require a response.”
Use Claude to create interactive visualizations that enhance learning.
Claude can’t generate images using AI like ChatGPT and Gemini, but it can create charts, graphs, and visualizations, and make them interactive. One of the best ways to use this is when learning something: for example, you could ask Claude to create an interactive volcano diagram or a scrollable timeline of 1990s music.
A request like “create an interactive visualization for me explaining how sound waves work” will demonstrate Claude’s capabilities. In response, you’ll receive a simple animation showing how sound waves work, along with sliders for adjusting the frequency and amplitude of the sound waves so you can see the changes this makes.
Make your clues so that Claude is forced to check the sources of information.
Claude is generally good at finding and summarizing information from the internet—you can verify that he’s searching the web by clicking the ” + ” button in the prompt box and then selecting “Search the web”—but he doesn’t always have a full understanding of the sources he’s considering.
A small adjustment can help here. If you’re searching online, specify that Claude should focus primarily on the most current data from the most authoritative websites (you can include these if you wish). It’s also a good idea to add a note to avoid rumors and speculation; this will make Claude’s answers more reliable. Claude will include web links in his answers for reference, so you can verify that he’s completed the steps indicated.
Specify styles to customize Claude’s responses.
Click the “+” button in the corner of the query window, then select “Use Style,” and you’ll see several different styles Claude can respond in: “Educational,” “Concise,” “Explanatory,” and “Formal.” There’s also a “Create and Edit Styles” option, allowing you to add your own. You can create a style in which Claude’s answers are short, clear, and to the point, or one in which Claude uses very simple language to explain complex topics. You can even set up a style in which Claude speaks like a pirate, if you prefer.
Use Claude’s “skills” to complete specific tasks.
Skills are another of Claude’s features that can significantly impact the AI’s performance. Essentially, they’re sets of instructions that can be recalled as needed, eliminating the need to manually enter them each time.
For example, you can use the skill to guide the tone and complexity of language used in responses, or add formatting and summarizing instructions for meeting minutes, specifying specific headings or section lengths. Custom Dictionary is another useful skill, allowing Claude to save definitions and reuse them whenever needed.
Skills can be quite complex and involve programming, but the easiest way to get started is to click the “+” button in the window that appears, then select “Skills” > “Add Skill.” You’ll see a skill creation tool that allows you to create skills using natural language prompts.
Stop training Claude on your conversations.
The point isn’t to force Claude to do anything, but to stop him—specifically, to block Claude from using your suggestions to train his AI models. Click on your account name (in the bottom left corner), then select “Settings” > “Privacy ” and disable the “Help improve Claude” feature. This way, you’ll know your conversations are only being used for your own purposes, not to help Anthropic improve its models.
Create Claude chat links to make interactions more interactive.
In the upper right corner of any chat, you’ll see a “Share” button. Click it, and you’ll be able to create a public link to the chat, which you can send to others or even publish online. However, this is a read-only link, so it’s intended for disseminating information rather than collaborating on ideas. Anything you add to the conversation after sharing it won’t appear in the shared link, although it will appear if you unshare the chat and then reshare it. Therefore, resharing links can make conversations more interactive: if others have suggestions, you can ask Claude, allow him to respond, and then reshare the link. To manage chats you’ve shared with others, click your account name (in the lower left corner), then select “Settings” > “Privacy” and “Manage” next to “Public Chats.”
Use Claude to create an Excel file to help you create your monthly budget.
Claude can create Word and Excel files with a single request, so you can create a report on the state of the semiconductor industry or a chart showcasing your favorite sports team’s achievements in just a few minutes. You can use this feature to create templates that you can fill out as needed. For example, ask Claude to “create an Excel file for family finance planning with space to enter key income and expenses,” and you’ll receive a fully formatted spreadsheet that you can then update.
Use Claude’s browser extension to find the best hotel for your trip.
Claude has a browser extension that can be installed in Chrome or any Chromium-based browser (such as Microsoft Edge). You can then assign it tasks like navigating websites, filling out forms, extracting data, and so on. The extension will prompt you for confirmation for important actions, such as making a purchase, and you can configure it to prompt for confirmation for each action by selecting “Ask before action” in the pop-up that appears when you launch the extension.
The Claude extension has a variety of features. One useful task the bot can perform is browsing hotel listings on a website and determining the most suitable option based on your specified criteria (price, information the AI already knows about you, and any other information you’d like to add).
Switch to incognito mode to chat with Claude privately.
Sometimes you might not want your conversations with Claude recorded to hide any traces of their existence and prevent Claude from mentioning them in the future. To start a new chat, click the ghost icon in the upper right corner to enter incognito mode. To return to normal mode, click the cross in the upper right corner. Your incognito conversations are not used for learning, but are stored in Anthropic for 30 days, after which they are deleted.