Paste one command into Terminal and Claude installs itself. Native macOS app, ready to chat in under 30 seconds.
New to Terminal? Read the step-by-step guideFollow these steps to install Claude on your Mac. It takes less than a minute, even if you've never used Terminal before.
Terminal is a built-in app on every Mac. There are two easy ways to open it:
Option A — Spotlight: Press the keyboard shortcut below, type Terminal, and hit Enter.
Option B — Finder: Open Finder → Applications → Utilities → Terminal.
Click Copy to grab the install command, or select it manually:
Click inside the Terminal window and paste the command. Then press Enter to run it.
After the installation completes, Claude launches on its own. Sign in with your Anthropic account or create a free one to start chatting. You'll find Claude in your Applications folder and Dock.
Pro tip: After installing, you can open Claude anytime with Spotlight — press ⌘ Cmd + Space, type Claude, and hit Enter.
A native app that feels right at home on your Mac. Fast, private, and deeply integrated with macOS.
Built for Apple Silicon. Opens in under 200ms, runs silently in the background with minimal memory usage.
End-to-end encryption. Your conversations are never used for training. SOC 2 Type II certified.
Launch Claude from Spotlight, use Shortcuts automations, and get native macOS notifications.
Drag-and-drop PDFs, images, code, and spreadsheets from Finder directly into your conversation.
Watch Claude reason step by step through complex problems with full transparency into its thought process.
Silent background updates through the macOS native updater. Always the latest version, zero effort.
Yes, Claude is free to download and includes a generous free tier. For heavier usage, extended thinking, and priority access, you can upgrade to Claude Pro for $20/month.
It downloads a small install script from Anthropic's servers, which then detects your Mac's architecture (Apple Silicon or Intel), downloads the signed app binary, verifies its checksum, moves it to /Applications, and launches it. The script is open-source — you can inspect it before running.
Absolutely. All conversations are encrypted in transit and at rest. Your data is never used to train models. Anthropic is SOC 2 Type II certified and GDPR compliant. You can delete all your data at any time from Settings.
Claude requires an internet connection to process requests — the model runs on Anthropic's secure cloud. However, the desktop app caches your conversation history locally so you can always review past chats.
Simply drag Claude from your Applications folder to the Trash. Or if you prefer the command line, run brew uninstall claude in Terminal.
Claude is code-signed and notarized by Apple. If you see this warning, go to System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down, and click "Open Anyway" next to the Claude message. This only needs to be done once.