Claude’s free plan can now remember you

There may be some things the folks at Anthropic sure want to forget sooner rather than later, but at least for its Claude chat service, memory is seemingly at the top of the roadmap right now. Over the weekend, the company launched a new tool that allows Claude users to import the memory of other AI providers into Claude, ensuring that Claude will immediately know as much about the user as the service they previously used.

And starting on Monday, that memory feature in Claude became available for users on its free plan. Memory was previously only a feature for paying users on Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise plans, with Anthropic’s plans starting at $20/month.

Memory is a genuinely useful feature, as it ensures you don’t have to constantly tell the model what your job is or what format a document should be in (though skills and other tools remain more useful for complex, repetitive tasks).

Memory in Claude is automatically generated as you chat with the service.

If it gets something wrong or you want to update its memory — which is just a simple text file — you can always make manual edits, too. And for users who are uncomfortable with Claude remembering this much about them, there is also an option to turn off the service’s ability to generate memories from chats.

Making this feature free and offering an easy option to switch between services also helps Anthropic capitalize on Claude’s current momentum (and some anti-OpenAI sentiment among some users), as, for better or worse, the company suddenly finds itself in the mainstream.

Here is the prompt Anthropic suggests you use to get an export of your memory data from the likes of OpenAI:

I'm moving to another service and need to export my data. List every memory you have stored about me, as well as any context you've learned about me from past conversations. Output everything in a single code block so I can easily copy it. Format each entry as: [date saved, if available] - memory content. Make sure to cover all of the following — preserve my words verbatim where possible: Instructions I've given you about how to respond (tone, format, style, 'always do X', 'never do Y'). Personal details: name, location, job, family, interests. Projects, goals, and recurring topics. Tools, languages, and frameworks I use. Preferences and corrections I've made to your behavior. Any other stored context not covered above. Do not summarize, group, or omit any entries. After the code block, confirm whether that is the complete set or if any remain.

The Claude app for iOS is now the #1 app on the U.S. App Store, and as an Anthropic spokesperson noted, among the top 10 productivity apps in over 100 countries. Users on Claude’s free plan are up 60% since the beginning of the year, and the number of paid subscribers on Pro and Max plans has doubled, the company says.

Anthropic would have surely preferred to reach those positions without its confrontation with the U.S. Department of Defense, but it’s also clearly aware of how to make the most of this current consumer momentum. The company, after all, was long a favorite among developers and enterprise users, but its mindshare among consumers was relatively low compared to the likes of OpenAI or Google’s Gemini.

Memory is also not the first feature to move from the paid plans to the free plan. In late February, it also brought connectors to the free plan, for example, which allows users to connect Claude to Slack, Figma, and over 150 other services. File creation, skills, and image search service are among the other features that also became available for free in recent months.