First time ever using Cowork. I asked Claude to organize files on my Desktop folder. At one point it ran rm -rf through the FUSE mount on a path containing a space (“GIG WORK”). Instead of deleting that one folder, it deleted everything on my Desktop. Files were stored as iCloud cloud-only so Time Machine had no backup. By the time I got to iCloud’s Restore Files tool, the deletion had already synced to iCloud and wiped them there too. Currently waiting for iCloud’s restore tool to finish counting 35,000+ deleted files so I can attempt recovery. I’ve submitted a bug report with logs attached to it, but what a nightmare and there is more info below. First go at CoWork too. This is a critical data loss bug. If you’re considering using Cowork, do not let it access your Desktop or any folder without a local backup first. Don’t get me wrong, I love Anthropic and Claude, but this one has been brutal. From logs exact command Claude ran: rm -rf “/Users/TheBonk/Desktop/GIG WORK” Path was properly double-quoted. “GIG WORK” was a single folder on the Desktop. The command should have deleted only that folder. What actually happened (from the logs): rm: cannot remove /Users/TheDonk/Desktop/MUSIC/…‘: Directory not empty rm: cannot remove /Users/TheBonk/ Desktop/BACKGROUND/…’: Directory not empty rm: cannot remove ‘/Users/TheBonk/Desktop/WORK ARCHIVE/…’: Directory not empty rm: cannot remove /Users/TheBonk/ Desktop/mac tools/…!: Directory not empty These are sibling folders, not children of GIG WORK. The FUSE mount that Cowork uses to expose the Mac Desktop to the Linux VM mishandled the space in the path and recursively deleted the entire Desktop instead of just the target folder. Only folders containing macOS-specific file bundles (•rtfd, .kext, .downiepart) survived because the Linux filesystem couldn’t unlink them. App version 1.1.4498. submitted by /u/stryfedonkey
Originally posted by u/stryfedonkey on r/ArtificialInteligence