You can attach files to any message: PDFs, Word docs, spreadsheets, images, screenshots. Claude reads them and works with the actual content. This is where it becomes genuinely useful:
- Photograph a contract, a school letter, a lab result, and ask for a plain-language explanation.
- Upload a 40-page PDF and ask for the five things that actually matter to you.
- Screenshot an error or confusing settings screen and ask what to click.
Practice
Find one document in your life you have been avoiding, an insurance letter, terms and conditions, a manual. Photograph or upload it.
Explain this document to me in plain language. Then list: 1) anything I must act on, with deadlines, 2) anything unusual or risky, 3) questions I should ask the sender.
One rule, forever: never paste passwords, PINs, card numbers, or other people's private data into any AI tool. Your own documents are fine; secrets and other people's secrets are not.
Two questions everyone asks. Does Claude remember me between chats? It can: there is a Memory feature you can see and edit in Settings. A fresh chat otherwise only knows what is in it. And does my typing train the AI? That is a switch you control: Settings, then Privacy. Check it once and decide for yourself.
Done when: you understand a document you did not understand yesterday.