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How to turn on web search in Claude

Without web search, Claude answers from what it already knows, which can be out of date. With it, Claude can look up current information and show where it came from. Here's where the setting is and how to get the most from it.

Updated 30 October 2026

These steps were checked against Anthropic's help pages on 30 October 2026. Claude's interface changes often, so labels may differ slightly as of your visit.

Turn on web search in a chat

1. Open a chat in Claude.
2. Click the + button in the lower-left corner of the chat window.
3. Select Web search in the menu. A checkmark appears next to it when it's on.
4. Ask your question. Claude can now look things up on the web when it answers.
5. To switch it off, open the same menu and click Web search again.

If you're using the new Claude experience, you won't find a toggle at all: Claude decides by itself when a search would help.

Turn it on for a Team or Enterprise workspace

At work, members can't use web search until it's allowed for the whole organization.

1. An Owner or Primary Owner opens Organization settings > Capabilities.
2. They turn on web search for the workspace.
3. From then on, any member can switch it on in their chats with + > Web search.

When Claude searches, and how to steer it

Web search suits questions about things that change: recent news, company details, the weather or last night's results. Anthropic says a typical web search answer takes one or two searches. A few ways to get more from it:

• Be specific: name what you want Claude to look up, such as a company, a date range or a kind of source. You steer the search, and Claude runs it and works through the results.
• Point it at a page: paste a URL and Claude can fetch that page and analyze all of it. Anthropic calls this web fetch.
• Save it for current facts: for reasoning that doesn't need fresh information, such as maths or debugging, leave web search off.

Reading the citations

Answers that use web search include citations so you can check where each claim came from. Image results appear alongside the text, each with its source link; Anthropic says image search is powered by Bing.

Click through on anything you plan to rely on. A source can be out of date or misread, and some links may not open.

Good to know

• Plans: web search is available on every plan, including Free. On Team and Enterprise it depends on the admin setting above.
• Models: it works with current Claude models, including Haiku 5.5, Sonnet 5.5 and Opus 5.5, and a range of older ones.
• Usage on the free plan: free limits reset every five hours, and both searches and fetched pages count toward them. Summarizing a very long article by URL costs far more than a normal search. Turn web search off for chats that don't need current information. Our guide to Claude usage limits has more ways to stretch them.
• Location: Claude may use an approximate location from your IP address to localize results.
• Going deeper: for questions that need many sources, Claude Research runs a longer series of searches. It requires web search to be on and a paid plan.

If it doesn't work

• No Web search option in the menu. You may have the new Claude experience, where Claude searches automatically. Ask your question with "search the web" in it. On a work account, ask an owner whether web search is enabled under Capabilities.
• Claude answered from memory. Check that the checkmark is on, then ask again and say what you want it to look up.
• Searches are slow or fail. Search time depends on how complex the question is, and availability can depend on your connection. Try again or narrow the question.
• A cited link won't open. Some websites' links don't work from Claude's results. Search for the page title yourself or ask Claude for another source.

Sources

• Enable and use web search (Claude Help Center, checked 30 October 2026)
• When should I use web search, extended thinking, and research? (Claude Help Center, checked 30 October 2026)
• Use research on Claude (Claude Help Center, checked 30 October 2026)

Frequently asked questions