Tutorial · 3 of 8

Install skills in Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop is Anthropic's official Mac and Windows app for Claude. It has the best skill support of any tool — most iClaude skills work here out of the box.

8 min read

Open your terminal

The terminal is the black-window app where you type commands. The first time you open it can feel intimidating — it's just an empty box. That's normal.

On Mac: press Cmd + Space, type "Terminal", hit Enter.

On Windows: press the Windows key, type "PowerShell", hit Enter.

On Linux: press Ctrl + Alt + T on most distros.

Find a skill on iclaude.io

Open iclaude.io/skills in a separate browser tab. You'll see a search bar and filter chips at the top.

Type what you want the skill to do in plain English — "read PDFs", "send WhatsApp messages", "query Postgres". The catalog ranks results by quality, popularity, and how recently they were tested.

Use the Stack filter to narrow to Claude — every skill there is verified to work in Claude Desktop.

Open the skill page

Click a skill from the list. The detail page shows what it does, who made it, recent run history, and — most importantly — the Install box with a copy button.

The install command looks like this:

terminal

$ npx iclaude install pdf-reader

Click the COPY button to copy it. It's now on your clipboard.

Paste and run

Switch back to your terminal. Right-click in the window and choose Paste (on Mac you can also use Cmd + V). Press Enter.

The first time you run an iClaude command, it asks for permission to download the installer. Type y and press Enter.

You'll see progress lines, then a green ✓ Installed message. If something goes wrong, jump to troubleshooting.

Restart Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop only reads its skill list when it starts up. So: quit the app completely and open it again.

On Mac: right-click the Claude icon in the dock and choose Quit. Then re-open from Spotlight.

On Windows: right-click the Claude icon in the taskbar tray (bottom right, may need to click the up-arrow to expand) and choose Quit. Then re-open from the Start menu.

Verify the skill works

Open Claude Desktop and start a new chat. Look for the small plug icon at the bottom of the message box — it lists every connected skill. Your new skill should appear there with a green dot.

Now ask Claude to use it. For a PDF reader skill, drop a PDF into the chat or say:

prompt

Use the pdf reader skill to summarise /Users/me/Desktop/contract.pdf

Claude will ask permission the first time it uses a new skill. Click Allow once or Always allow — that's on you. Then it runs the skill and shows the result.

Where the config lives

You don't need to touch this — iClaude manages it for you — but if you ever want to peek:

macOS

code

~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Windows

code

%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

Linux (unofficial builds)

code

~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Inside is a JSON file with a mcpServers object. Each skill you install adds one entry. Don't edit by hand unless you know what you're doing — a single missing comma breaks everything.

Common gotchas

Skill installed but not showing in Claude. You didn't fully quit Claude before re-opening. See step 5.
Plug icon missing. Update Claude Desktop to the latest version — MCP support landed in late 2024.
"Server failed to start" on launch. The skill needs an API key or credentials. Open the skill page on iclaude.io and read the "Setup" section.
Claude keeps asking permission every time. That's a setting, not a bug. Click Always allow the next time it asks.

Full troubleshooting guide: /docs/tutorials/troubleshooting.