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NOPE
Low reported severity

Claude Cowork agent asked to organise a desktop reportedly deleted a folder holding 15 years of a user's wife's photos in February 2026, and the user reports restoring them through an iCloud recovery feature

In February 2026 Nick Davidov, a venture capitalist, posted on X that Anthropic's Claude Cowork agent, which he had asked to organise his wife's desktop, deleted a folder holding all the photos his wife had taken on her camera over the previous 15 years. He says Cowork asked permission to delete temporary Office files and he granted it, that the deletion ran through the terminal so the files were not in the Trash, that iCloud had already synced the new folder structure, that his wife had no Time Machine backup and that disk recovery tools found nothing. Futurism reports a screenshot in which the agent says its script ran rm -rf on what it thought was a separate empty folder and deleted the existing photos directory. Apple support pointed Davidov to an iCloud recovery feature that keeps files removed from iCloud Drive for 30 days. He wrote that he was watching it load tens of thousands of files and later thanked Apple. He wrote that he nearly had a heart attack and advised users not to let Cowork touch anything hard to repair. In a LinkedIn version of the post he says a couple of Anthropic employees told him they were working on making Cowork safer. Every account traces to Davidov's own posts.

AI system
Claude Cowork
Anthropic
Occurred
Feb 2026
Reported
7 February 2026
Event location
Unknown
What the AI did
Acted on the person’s behalf
Reported harm
Property Loss
Whose AI use
Their own AI use · Someone else’s AI use
Setting
Everyday life
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources, 1 underlying account
5 claims: 5 reported. 6 open questions
People reported harmed
2 people

AI system as recorded: Claude Cowork (Anthropic's agent workspace in the Claude desktop app)

Reported harm

Davidov reports that a folder holding about 15 years of his wife's photos was deleted by the Claude Cowork agent and could not be found in the Trash, in iCloud or by disk recovery tools until Apple support pointed him to an iCloud recovery feature, through which he reports the files loading back. The account is his own, relayed by NDTV and Futurism. Whether every file was recovered is not stated.

What remains unknown

  • The time of the deletion is not stated. The earliest source is Davidov's X post at 03:52 UTC on 7 February 2026, which is the evening of 6 February in US Pacific time.
  • The number of files or photos deleted and restored. NDTV says over 15,000 photos, Dexerto says almost 27,000 files, and Davidov's posts give the 15-year span only.
  • Whether every deleted file was restored.
  • Anthropic's public response, if any. The only mention is Davidov's statement that Anthropic employees contacted him.
  • The Cowork permission settings and version in use, and the location of the computer.
  • How Davidov's wife experienced the event: she is not quoted in any inspected source and is not named here.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. Davidov reports that Claude Cowork, Anthropic's agent workspace, carried out the deletion after he asked it to organise his wife's desktop, and Futurism quotes the agent's own message attributing the deletion to a script it ran. Anthropic has not been quoted on the event in the inspected sources. The agent's description of its own action is not an independent record.

5 claims: 5 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported Davidov asked Claude Cowork to organise his wife's desktop, granted the agent's request for permission to delete temporary Office files, and the agent then deleted a folder holding all the photos his wife had taken on her camera over the previous 15 years.

Causal attribution. Davidov's own account. NDTV and Futurism relay it and were not able to verify it. The X post says the agent "tried renaming" while the later screenshot describes a merge of two folders, so the two descriptions of what the agent was doing differ.

  • x.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Asked Claude Cowork organize my wife’s desktop, it stated doing it, asked for a permission to delete temp office files, I granted it, and then it goes “ooops”.
  • x.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    accidentally deleted a folder with all of the photos my wife made on her camera for the last 15 years.
  • ndtv.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Anthropic's Claude Cowork AI agent accidentally deleted 15 years of family photos while attempting to "organise" his wife's desktop.
Reported The deletion was carried out through the terminal, so the files were not in the Trash, and the agent's own message to Davidov said its script ran rm -rf on what it thought was a separate empty folder but deleted the existing photos directory and its contents.

Causal attribution. The agent's description of its own action, as posted by Davidov and quoted by Futurism, is a language model's account of itself and not a command log. The screenshot in s2 was viewed: it shows the agent's message that it did not account for the Mac's case-insensitive filesystem when merging a lowercase photos folder with a new Photos folder. No command log was inspected.

  • x.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    It’s not in trash, it was done via terminal
  • futurism.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    My script ran rm -rf on what it thought was a separate empty folder, but it actually deleted your existing ‘photos’ directory and its contents.
  • x.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    At least I’m grateful it admitted it straight away.
Reported Davidov's wife had no Time Machine backup, iCloud had already synced the new folder structure and disk recovery tools found nothing, until Apple support pointed Davidov to an iCloud recovery feature that keeps files removed from iCloud Drive for 30 days, and Davidov reports the files loading back.

Causal attribution. Davidov's account. The posts show the recovery under way and a later thank-you to Apple. They do not state that every file came back, and no source gives a reconciled file count (NDTV says over 15,000 photos, Dexerto says almost 27,000 files, and the X post gives only the 15-year span). The screenshot in s2 shows an iCloud recovery panel with a count of 26,478 files, and the scope of that panel is not explained.

  • x.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    It’s not in iCloud, it already synced the new file structure.
  • x.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    She didn’t have Time Machine.
  • x.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Disc recovery tools can’t see anything.
  • x.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    I called Apple and they pointed me to a feature in iCloud allowing to retrieve files that were saved before but are no longer on iCloud Drive (they keep them for 30 days).
  • x.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    I’m now watching it load tens of thousands of files.
  • linkedin.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Thanks Apple. All the years paying for iCloud paid back in one night.
  • ndtv.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Davidov contacted Apple Support, who helped him use a specific iCloud Drive feature to restore files deleted within the last 30 days.
  • dexerto.com(opens in new tab) context · English
    Davidov revealed that he saved almost 27,000 files that Claude had removed
Reported Davidov says he nearly had a heart attack and advised people not to let Claude Cowork into their actual file system or anything hard to repair.

Causal attribution. Davidov's own statement of alarm and advice. Not verified.

Reported Davidov says a couple of Anthropic employees reached out to say they were working on making Claude Cowork safer ahead of its public release.

Causal attribution. Davidov's statement in the LinkedIn version only. The X post does not contain it, and no Anthropic statement was found.

  • linkedin.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    a couple Anthropic employees reached out to say they’re working on making Claude Cowork safer ahead of the public release

Sources

6 sources inspected, from 1 underlying account. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Davidov's X post, timestamp 3:52 AM on 7 Feb 2026 (03:52:14 UTC per the api.fxtwitter.com mirror). Page text read directly. Applies to s1.

Davidov's reply to s1, 15:03 UTC on 7 Feb 2026. Page text read directly, and the attached screenshot image was viewed. Applies to s2.

Davidov's LinkedIn version of the post with his own comments. The page shows only a relative age (7mo at retrieval). The post id decodes to about 00:13 UTC on 8 Feb 2026. Applies to s3.

Full article read from the Internet Archive capture of 8 Feb 2026 12:41 UTC (direct fetch returned HTTP 403). It relays the X post and adds no independent reporting. Applies to s4.

Full article read directly. It credits Futurism and embeds Davidov's X posts and adds no independent reporting. Applies to s6.

Full article read directly. It relays the X posts and a screenshot posted by Davidov and adds no independent reporting. Applies to s5.

Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: United States. Court countries: Unknown.

NDTV calls Davidov a Bay Area venture capitalist, which places him in the United States. No source states where his wife lives or where the computer was used, so no event country is recorded. No court proceeding.

Reviewed for publication 2026-09-29: Published under the 2026-09-15 charter as a consequential agent action on a user's behalf with a reported, later recovered, loss of a personal photo archive. The account rests on Davidov's public posts, which NDTV and Futurism relay, so all sources form one independence group and claims stay at reported status. Event date is month precision, taken from the present-tense narration in Davidov's X post of 03:52 UTC on 7 February 2026 ('I’m now watching it load tens of thousands of files'), which places the deletion at or shortly before that post. No source states the day of the deletion. Davidov spoke publicly under his own name and is named. His wife is described by role only and is not named.

People described

Nick Davidov, a venture capitalist who published the account under his own name, and his wife, whose photo folder was deleted

People reported harmed in this case

2 people

1 AI participant · 1 other person harmed

Two people are reported affected: Davidov, who ran the agent and reports the loss and the recovery effort, and his wife, whose folder of photos was deleted. Children and friends appearing in the photos, other relatives and Anthropic users generally are not counted.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Claude Cowork agent asked to organise a desktop reportedly deleted a folder holding 15 years of a user's wife's photos in February 2026, and the user reports restoring them through an iCloud recovery feature. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2026-claude-cowork-agent-reportedly-deleted-15-years-of-photos-while-organising-desktop-icloud-recovery

BibTeX

@misc{2026_claude_cowork_agent_reportedly_deleted_15_years_of_photos_while_organising_desktop_icloud_recovery,
  title = {Claude Cowork agent asked to organise a desktop reportedly deleted a folder holding 15 years of a user's wife's photos in February 2026, and the user reports restoring them through an iCloud recovery feature},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2026-claude-cowork-agent-reportedly-deleted-15-years-of-photos-while-organising-desktop-icloud-recovery}
}

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