Workbranch › Guides

How to set Claude's personal preferences and styles

If you keep telling Claude to be shorter, skip the pep talk or use British spelling, you can say it once and have it stick. Here's where Claude's personal preferences live now, what replaced the old styles menu in Anthropic's help pages, and how to write instructions that work.

Updated 18 October 2026

Checked against Anthropic's help pages on 18 October 2026. Claude's settings are changing quickly, so labels may differ in your version.

Three places to personalize Claude

You can combine all three. Anthropic's help page calls the account-wide field both "Instructions for Claude" and "profile instructions"; it's the setting many people still call personal preferences.

Set your account-wide instructions

1. On claude.ai, click your initials in the lower left corner.
2. Choose Settings.
3. Find the Instructions for Claude field and type your preferences.
4. Start a new chat and ask something typical to see whether the answer changed the way you wanted.

If you used Global instructions in Claude Cowork, Anthropic says they become part of Instructions for Claude once you have the new Claude experience. Open the field and check that the combined text still says what you want.

What happened to styles?

Styles were Claude's way of switching how answers are written. As of October 2026, Anthropic's personalization help page no longer documents styles. It lists Instructions for Claude, project instructions and skills, and recommends skills when you want to change how Claude formats and delivers its responses. Of the pages we checked, only the incognito help page still mentions custom styles, listing them as part of your profile information.

In practice, you have two ways to get the effect of a style today:

• Always on: describe the tone and format in Instructions for Claude. Simple and works everywhere.
• On demand: use a skill, which Claude loads only when a task calls for it. Good for formats you use for specific jobs, such as a weekly report layout or your brand's voice.

Use skills for tone and format

1. Make sure code execution is on: in Settings → Capabilities, turn on Code execution and file creation. Skills need it.
2. Click Customize, then open Skills.
3. Click + and choose Browse skills to explore the directory of ready-made skills.
4. To make your own, create a folder containing a skill.md file, zip it with the folder at the root, upload it, and enable it under Customize → Skills.

A skill.md starts with a short header holding a name (up to 64 characters) and a description (up to 200 characters), followed by the instructions. The description matters most: Claude reads it to decide when the skill applies, so spell out the situations clearly. Skills are available on Free, Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans.

How to write preferences Claude follows

Anthropic suggests covering four things: the approaches or methods you prefer, terms and concepts you use often, the situations you usually bring to Claude, and general communication preferences. A compact example:

• I run a small bakery and mostly ask about pricing, staffing and supplier emails.
• Answer in British English. Lead with the answer, then the reasoning.
• Keep replies under 200 words unless I ask for detail. Use bullet points for steps.
• When I say "COGS" I mean ingredient and packaging costs only.

Some practical tips:

• Keep it general. Put task-specific detail in project instructions, so it doesn't leak into unrelated chats.
• Be concrete. "Short" means different things; a word count or "one paragraph" is easier to follow.
• Let Claude draft it. Anthropic suggests asking Claude to review conversations you liked and write instructions for itself, which helps when you can't put your preferences into words.
• Remember memory. If memory and chat search are on, Claude also picks up your preferences and communication style over time. You can review what it has stored in Settings → Memory.

Coming from ChatGPT? Our guide to ChatGPT custom instructions covers the equivalent setting there, and the Claude Projects guide explains project instructions in depth.

Good to know

• Projects on Free: Anthropic says free accounts can create up to five projects, though the same page also describes project instructions as a paid-plan feature, so check what your account shows.
• Team and Enterprise: owners can turn off code execution for the organization, which also blocks skills, and can provision skills for everyone as enabled or disabled by default.
• Interface language: change it from your profile icon under Language. Voice mode has its own language under Settings → General.

If it doesn't work

• Claude ignores a preference. Rewrite it as a specific instruction, and check that project instructions in the same chat don't ask for something different.
• A skill never kicks in. Anthropic's advice is to revise the skill's description so it states more precisely when it should be used.
• You can't see Skills. Turn on Code execution and file creation. On a work plan, ask an owner whether it's disabled for the organization.
• You still see an old style applied. Move the wording you liked into Instructions for Claude or a skill, since those are the options Anthropic currently documents.

Sources

• Understanding Claude's personalization features (Claude Help Center, checked 18 October 2026)
• What are skills? (Claude Help Center, checked 18 October 2026)
• How to create custom skills (Claude Help Center, checked 18 October 2026)
• Create and edit files with Claude (Claude Help Center, checked 18 October 2026)
• Use incognito chats (Claude Help Center, checked 18 October 2026)
• Adapt to new model personas after deprecations (Claude Help Center, checked 18 October 2026)
• How to use Claude in your preferred language (Claude Help Center, checked 18 October 2026)
• Use Claude's chat search and memory to build on previous context (Claude Help Center, checked 18 October 2026)

Frequently asked questions