Claude Code Cowork Creates 10GB VM Bundle on macOS Without User Consent
Anthropic’s Cowork feature within Claude Code provisions a virtual machine bundle consuming approximately 10GB of disk space on macOS. The allocation occurs without prior notification or user confirmation, surfacing as a filed issue on the Claude Code GitHub repository [1].
The problem is specific to macOS environments running Claude Code locally with Cowork enabled. Users discovering the bundle post-creation have flagged it as unexpected resource consumption with no corresponding documentation or opt-in prompt.
Scope of the Issue
| Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| Feature | Cowork (Claude Code) |
| Platform affected | macOS |
| Approximate disk cost | ~10GB |
| User notification | None |
| Issue tracker | GitHub #22543 |
The VM bundle is created as part of Cowork’s sandboxed execution environment. For machines with limited SSD capacity â common on base-model MacBook Airs shipping with 256GB â a silent 10GB allocation represents nearly 4% of total storage consumed without consent.
Practical Implications
Teams evaluating Claude Code for local development workflows should audit disk usage after enabling Cowork. On shared or CI machines where disk budgets are tight, this behavior could trigger capacity alerts or build failures from exhausted storage.
Until Anthropic ships either a confirmation prompt or a configurable size cap, the straightforward mitigation is to avoid enabling Cowork on disk-constrained systems, or to manually remove the VM bundle after disabling the feature.
References
Configuration details reflect a production environment at time of writing. Implementation specifics vary based on tooling versions, platform updates, and organizational requirements. Validate approaches against current documentation before deployment.