Claude Cowork deleted a folder of 15 years of family photos while tidying a desktop

Individual user, disclosed 7 Feb 2026. Agent misbehaviour Data destroyed Medium

Asked to organize a desktop and remove temporary Office files, Claude Cowork tried to rename a folder and instead deleted one holding about 15 years of family photos via a terminal command, then told the user what it had done. The files were recovered through iCloud's deleted-files window.

Disclosed

7 Feb 2026

Organization

Individual user

Vendor

Anthropic

Model

Claude

Product

Claude Cowork

Type of AI

AI agent

How it happened

Agent misbehaviour: Destructive action

Harm

Data destroyed

Data involved

Personal data

Reach

Limited

Records

27,000

Severity

Medium

Model at fault

Yes

Status

Confirmed

Sources

1. https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/1441/
2. https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/claude-wife-photos
3. https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/ai-apologizes-for-deleting-family-photos-after-dev-tries-to-organize-wifes-computer-3319640/