Sooner or later every Claude user asks: "Where's dark mode?" or "Why isn't web search working?" This guide walks through the Claude settings screen — and the options scattered around it — item by item, then picks out what beginners should actually adjust first. (Official: support.claude.com)
🟢 Current lineup (September 2026): Claude Opus 5.5 / Claude Sonnet 5 / Claude Haiku 4.5 (higher tier: Claude Fable 5.1). · model notice · Fable subscription
Fable 5 and 5.1 subscription (updated September 7, 2026): Claude Fable 5.1, released September 1, 2026, is the current Fable model and Fable 5 is now legacy. Plan terms are the same for both — Max and Team Premium plans include Fable at up to 50% of the weekly usage limit; Pro and Team Standard use usage credits (
How to open Settings
Click your name (or initials) in the lower-left corner and choose Settings. Inside you'll find tabs such as Appearance and Capabilities. One thing to note up front: model and effort selection lives next to the chat input, not in Settings — keep the map above in mind and you won't get lost.
Appearance — dark mode and fonts
Under Settings > Appearance you can change two things.
- Color mode — Light, Match System, or Dark. Pick Dark for late-night sessions, or Match System to follow your device.
- Chat font — Default, Match System, or Dyslexic Friendly. Claude officially ships a dyslexia-friendly font option.
Note that the sidebar can't be fully disabled — you can only collapse and expand it with the button at its top.
Capabilities — web search
Web search lets Claude look things up on the live internet and answer with current information. You can enable it in Settings, or mid-conversation via the slider icon in the chat input — toggle Web search on. Responses then include citations with source links so you can verify where the information came from.
With web search on, you can also paste a URL and ask Claude to analyze it (web fetch — it retrieves the page's full content). Per the official guidance, on free accounts fetching a long article consumes a significant share of your usage, so pasting only the parts you need is more economical.
On Team and Enterprise plans, an admin must first enable web search workspace-wide under Admin settings > Capabilities. If web search is missing on a work account, that's usually why.
Capabilities — search and reference past chats
On paid plans (Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise), you can ask Claude to search your previous conversations — "find what we discussed about X" — and continue where you left off. Once rolled out to your account it's on by default, covering all chats outside projects plus each project internally (project searches stay within that project).
To turn it off, go to Settings > Capabilities, find the Preferences section, and switch off "Search and reference chats." To keep a single conversation out of history entirely, use an incognito chat: click the ghost icon at the top right of a new chat for a temporary conversation that isn't saved and is excluded from past-chat search (incognito chats are available on all plans, including free).
Model, effort, and extended thinking — next to the send button, not in Settings
This is where beginners get lost most often. Which model answers, and how hard it works, is controlled from the model menu next to the send button — not the Settings screen. You can change it anytime mid-conversation; changes apply from the next response.
- Changing the model — click the model name and pick one; "More models" shows the full list. On Enterprise accounts, a missing model may have been disabled by your administrator.
- Effort (how much work goes into each response) — available on Fable 5, Sonnet 5, Opus 4.8, 4.7, 4.6, and Sonnet 4.6, among others; Fable 5.1 (September 2026) supports effort per the API docs, but check the app's model menu for its in-app availability (the supported list changes over time, so the model menu is the source of truth). Per the official guidance: Low and Medium suit routine tasks and stretch your usage; High balances quality and speed; Extra high targets long-running coding and agentic work (Opus 4.7 and newer); Max is the most thorough option. The level marked "Default" is that model's recommendation. Higher effort means better answers but you hit usage limits faster.
- Extended thinking (a separate reasoning pass before the answer) — an independent toggle you can combine freely with any effort level. When on, Claude works through the problem in an expandable thinking section first.
Styles — moving to Skills
The Styles feature (locking tone and format) is officially migrating to Skills as of the June 2026 announcement. Your custom styles are migrated automatically (disabled by default — enable them under Customize > Skills) and invoked with a slash command like /your-style-name-style. Full details in our styles guide:
Claude Styles — Lock Tone, Format, and Length Your Way
Privacy and data settings
Whether your conversations are used for training, and how to manage that, is covered in a dedicated guide:
Claude Privacy & Data Settings
Recommended settings for beginners
| Setting | Recommendation | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Web search | On | Current-events questions get answered with citations |
| Search past chats | On (default) | "That thing from last time" just works; use incognito chats for sensitive topics |
| Model / effort | Keep Default | Each model shows its recommended level; drop to Low/Medium to save usage |
| Color mode | Match System | Follows your device automatically |
| Extended thinking | When needed | Turn it on for genuinely hard problems |