If you have been paying for Claude yourself, this explains what happens to your
existing work when you move to the Cornell pilot.
⚠️ Read this before you cancel anything
There is no deadline. Cornell is not switching your personal subscription
off — you move when you're ready.
But most of your claude.ai content does not transfer, and once you cancel
your own subscription it's gone. Save what you need first.
Why so little carries over
The Cornell setup does not sign in to a Claude account at all. Claude Desktop
connects straight to Cornell's AI Gateway with your gateway key — that's
what keeps your work on Cornell-provided models under Cornell's policies.
The upside is that there's no second account to manage. The trade-off is that
there is no destination account for your existing Projects, chats, or
settings to move into. Anything you want to keep has to be saved somewhere
outside Claude — a document, a folder, your own notes.
What to save before you switch
| What |
What to do |
| Conversation history |
Does not transfer, and there is no bulk export. Copy and paste anything you want to keep into a document. |
| Projects |
Open each one and copy out its custom instructions text. Make a note of which files you uploaded. |
| Uploaded files |
Download anything you still need. Files inside Projects are not retrievable once access ends. |
| Custom instructions |
Copy the text from your profile settings ("What would you like Claude to know about you?"). |
A simple approach: make one document per Project, paste in the instructions
text, and list its files. That's usually enough to rebuild quickly.
If you use the Claude desktop app today
Your Skills do carry over. Cornell's install keeps workflow skills in a
folder on your own computer, so you can copy yours straight across:
|
Your skills folder |
| Mac |
~/Documents/Claude/.claude/skills/ |
| Windows |
%USERPROFILE%\Claude\.claude\skills\ |
Copy each skill's entire folder in — it needs a SKILL.md file inside — then
restart Claude. Your skills reappear when you type /.
Easier still, you can paste a skill's contents into the chat and say "Save
this as a skill called …", and Claude will file it for you.
claude.ai connections aren't available at all. The Cornell setup never signs
in to a Claude account, so there is nothing for those hosted integrations to
attach to. Cornell manages one connector for you — web search.
If you relied on local MCP servers, they can be re-added by hand under
Settings → Developer, or set up in the CLI — both stdio and streamable HTTP
work. Nothing migrates either way, since they run on your own machine; it's a
matter of pointing Claude at them again. See What Claude Desktop Can Do.
What you don't need to recreate
The Cornell setup already applies its own configuration — the gateway
connection, model choices, and privacy settings are handled for you. See
Privacy — What We Turned Off and Why.
The Code tab is off by default in the pilot and enabled per person on
request — so if your personal workflow depended on it, this is a question to
ask rather than a capability you've lost. Email
itrequests@business.cornell.edu; Privacy — What We Turned Off and Why covers what
Code does and what's worth understanding first, and Appendix: Claude Code (CLI) on Cornell's AI Gateway is
another option.
Then what?
Once you've saved what you need:
- Get a gateway key — Getting Your Cornell AI Gateway Key.
- Install Claude Desktop — Installing Claude Desktop on macOS (Pilot) or
Installing Claude Desktop on Windows (Pilot).
- See what's available to you — What Claude Desktop Can Do.
Questions about the move? Email itrequests@business.cornell.edu.