Real example · Meetings & productivity
Tidy a desktop with Claude Cowork (and what went wrong)
What they did
Nick Davidov asked Claude Cowork to organize his wife's desktop, including removing temporary Office files. Per t3n, it tried to merge folders named "Photos" and "photos" and, since macOS ignores case, deleted both with a terminal command.
How it went
About 15 years of family photos were wiped and were not in the Trash. Apple support walked him through an iCloud restore point that brought most of them back. The incident was on 7 February 2026 and the report is his, relayed by press.
Worth knowing
One user's account, relayed by outlets such as t3n and NDTV and listed as an alleged incident in the AI Incident Database. Give agents a copy of the files, keep a backup and read the plan before approving deletions.
Try it yourself with Claude
Replace anything in [brackets] with your details.
Organize the files in the folder [copy of the folder]. First show me a plan: the folder structure you propose and which files you would move or rename. Do not delete anything, do not use terminal delete commands, and treat folders whose names differ only by capitalization as different. Wait for my approval before you move anything.Read the original
KI-Fail auf dem Macbook: Entwickler löscht 15 Jahre Fotos (t3n) ↗
t3n.de · · News report
Attributed to the source linked below; not our own test.
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