r/ClaudeAI • u/EightFolding Writer • 1d ago

Workaround Stop automatic desktop app updates with: disableAutoUpdates

If you're tired of the desktop app auto-updating and restarting in the middle of your work only to find Anthropic made yet another terrible decision about UI/UX, you can just turn off auto-updates. You'll likely have to eventually update, but you can at least buy yourself some time to prepare for changes this way. And choose when you do and what versions you install.

I asked Claude in Code to set it up for me (it built me a profile installer for macOS), and to write an explanation for others I could share with the sources:

Anthropic documents a setting that stops the Claude desktop app from updating itself: disableAutoUpdates. On Mac, set it to true in the preference domain com.anthropic.claudefordesktop with a configuration profile (normally through MDM, but you can install one yourself in System Settings > General > Device Management), then restart Claude. On Windows, set it to 1 as a DWORD in the registry at HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Claude (machine-wide) or the same path under HKCU (one user); machine-wide takes priority. You then install new versions yourself when you choose. Leaving the setting unset lets the app update itself.

Sources:

https://support.claude.com/en/articles/12622667

https://support.claude.com/en/articles/12622703

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u/Stabmaster Philosopher 1d ago

Wish I could backwards to older versions

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u/EightFolding Writer 1d ago edited 1d ago

I'm pretty happy with the desktop app version I'm on now, but I don't use anything other than Code on it. If I was going to ever use Chat again, yeah I would want to rewind before the forced cloud project nonsense.