Where do your files live, and which ones should Claude use?
A connector lets Claude search your storage when you ask. It doesn't copy anything into Claude first.
Follow the Google Drive part of step 2.
Follow the Microsoft 365 part of step 2. With a work account, a Microsoft Entra Global Administrator, the person who runs your company's Microsoft accounts, approves Claude once for the whole company.
Look for your service under Customize › Connectors. If it isn't there, keep using Projects from lesson 2 for now. The practice folder in this lesson needs Google Drive or Microsoft 365, so use one of them for the Check.
In lesson 2 you listed these documents for your Project:
Pick the places where the answers live: a Policies folder, a Price lists folder, a team site. Leave out anything you wouldn't want a colleague to read over your shoulder. Using the practice kit? Write "Claude practice".
Who can Claude read for?
Guess first. The answer decides what you can safely tell your team.
Show the answer
No. Each person connects their own account, and Claude only opens what that person could open anyway. If you can't open a file in Drive, SharePoint or OneDrive, your Claude can't either.
That works in your favor. You don't need a second set of rules for Claude. The sharing you already set up in your storage decides what it can read.
Connect your storage
Four steps. Tick each one when it's done.
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Find out who has to switch the connector on.
On Free, Pro, Max and Ultra, you connect it yourself, so go to step 2. On Team and Enterprise, an Owner or Primary Owner enables it for the organization first. They click their initials at the lower left, open Organization settings › Connectors, and click Browse connectors at the bottom of the page. Then they pick Google Drive or Microsoft 365 and click Add to your team.
Enabling it doesn't give anyone access. Each person still signs in to their own account in step 2.
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Connect your storage.
In Claude Desktop, open Customize › Connectors. Click the + next to the word Connectors (a different + from the one in the chat box) and find Google Drive. Click Connect, sign in with your Google account, and allow the access Google asks for. Claude still asks you before it shares, moves or trashes a file.
Using SharePoint or OneDrive instead
With a work Microsoft 365 account, a Microsoft Entra Global Administrator, the person who runs your company's Microsoft accounts, approves Claude once for the company. They open Customize › Connectors, click Connect on Microsoft 365, choose Work or school account, sign in and tick the box that grants access for the whole organization. After that, each person connects the same way with their own work account. On Team and Enterprise, the Owner does step 1 first.
On Free, Pro, Max and Ultra you can connect a personal Microsoft account instead, such as outlook.com or hotmail.com: choose Personal account. No admin is needed, but Claude then sees only that account's own OneDrive, with no SharePoint.
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Put the files in a folder Claude will search.
Use the folders you named in Think, or the practice kit. Download the kit from lesson 2 as one ZIP file (northgate-practice-kit.zip, 59 KB) and open it to unpack the files. Make a new folder called "Claude practice" in Drive or OneDrive and drag the five documents into it. You can leave out README.txt.
A file you just uploaded can take a while to show up in search.
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Use it in a chat.
Start a new chat. Click + at the lower left of the chat box, hover over Connectors, and switch on Google Drive or Microsoft 365. Then ask for something stored there:
Search my file storage for the document about returns. Tell me how long customers have to return something unused, and give me a link to the file.
Claude shows which files it used. If a link is missing, ask for it.
If you see this instead
- "Access blocked: your institution's admin needs to review Claude for Google Drive"
- Your company's Google Workspace admin has to mark Claude as trusted. When that's someone else, forward them this: "In admin.google.com, open Security › Access and data control › API controls › Manage App Access (older screens: Manage third-party app access). Click Configure new app, search for Claude and select it. Click Continue, choose Trusted, click Continue, then Finish." About 15 minutes after they finish, connect again.
- Microsoft says an administrator must grant app permissions
- The one-time approval in step 2 hasn't happened yet. Ask your Entra admin to do it, and send them Anthropic's setup page: Set up the Microsoft 365 connector. On Team and Enterprise, the Owner also has to enable Microsoft 365 (step 1).
- Claude says it can't find a file you know exists
- Check that you can open it yourself, that it's saved in Drive, SharePoint or OneDrive (Claude can't see files kept only on your computer), and that the connector is switched on in this chat. Then name the folder or the exact file name.
Does Claude find the file, name it and link it?
Ask for something that is only in a stored file. Start a new chat outside the lesson 2 Project, so Claude can't answer from files you uploaded earlier. Make sure your storage connector is switched on in that chat.
With your own files
Ask about something you know is in one stored file and nowhere else, such as a price, a date or a name. Say "Search my file storage" so Claude doesn't answer from memory.
You pass when Claude gives the right answer, names the file, and the link opens that file in your storage.
With the practice kit
Same question as lesson 2, but now the files sit in your storage.
What a good answer says
Yes: unused accessories can come back within 30 days, and the helmet is $59.99, which is over $50, so Ian Whitlock approves the refund. It names returns-and-warranty.pdf and links to it in your Drive or OneDrive. It may also name the price list, which holds the $59.99.
What Claude can and can't see
Claude sees the files your own account can open, in Drive, or in SharePoint sites, libraries and OneDrive. It looks when you ask. In Drive it reads the text of Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, PDFs and Office files. In SharePoint and OneDrive it reads Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF and plain-text files.
Claude doesn't see files you can't open, files that are only on your computer, or the pictures inside a document. OneNote notebooks show up in search but can't be read: export them to Word or PDF first. On Microsoft 365 you can't limit Claude to chosen SharePoint sites. It searches all the ones you can open, so tidy your sharing before you roll this out to the team.
Two questions from memory
A colleague connects the same Drive. Can their Claude open files only you can see?
No. Each person connects their own account, and Claude only opens what that person could open anyway.
On a Team or Enterprise plan, who has to act before you can connect Drive?
An Owner or Primary Owner enables the connector for the organization. Then each person connects their own account. For Microsoft 365, the Entra admin also approves it once.
Lesson 5 opens by asking the first one again.
Lesson 4 connects the tools your team uses every day. There too, each person signs in to their own account, and Claude sees what they see.
Your plan so far
What you've decided
- First task for Claude
- Who starts
- Training setting
- Profile
- First Project for
- Documents in it
- Project instructions
- Shared with the team
- File storage
- Folders Claude should use
- Storage connected