Claude bans: local files, telemetry and advice for users in Russia

Telegram posts discuss Claude account bans and recommend deleting local application files before signing in again. The forwarded post promises to avoid most bans. Our editorial team found no evidence establishing effectiveness and has not tested the method. The scale of recent bans and their connection to particular local files remain unverified.

Anthropic lists account creation from an unsupported location as one reason for a ban. Russia is absent from its published list of locations where Claude is available. This is an existing rule, not confirmation of a new mass-ban campaign. Personal complaints from other regions likewise do not establish the cause of individual cases.

Files listed in the forwarded post

For the CLI, the forwarded post lists ~/.claude.json and the fields machineID, userID and anonymousId, and separately mentions ~/.claude/.claude.json. The documentation we reviewed does not establish the claimed purpose of these fields, their consistency across accounts or their role in identifying users in Russia. These are the forwarding author’s claims, not findings from our verification.

For Claude Desktop on macOS, the post lists ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/ and ant-did, ant-device-registry.json, remote-control-state.json, config.json, chromeExtension.pairedDeviceId and claude-code-sessions/. Individual files may vary by version and installation. We do not confirm the claimed connection of each item to telemetry or account enforcement.

What we could verify

Official documentation confirms that ~/.claude.json holds sign-in state, MCP configuration, per-project state including trust decisions, and global configuration keys. It is not merely a disposable telemetry file. Resetting it may require restoring that state.

In issue #88692 in the official Claude Code repository, a Windows user reports that reinstalling changed ant-did and device identity data, leaving earlier sessions unable to connect through the interface. This is a user bug report, not an Anthropic statement or evidence about fraud detection; it should not be generalized to every macOS version.

Advice for users in Russia

Before any reset, save important conversations, project files and a backup of your configuration. Do not blindly delete the entire application directory or share configuration files or tokens with strangers. Check the official supported-location list: clearing local state does not change the published service availability rules.

For a mistaken ban, Anthropic recommends signing in to the banned account and submitting an appeal. The help page also describes data exports, although accessible data may depend on the violation. For work, keep copies of results and a backup tool available in your region. This is our editorial advice for operational continuity.

Claude Code documents DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1 and DISABLE_ERROR_REPORTING=1 as privacy controls. They disable the corresponding metrics and error reports, not all data transmission or regional restrictions. The documentation says disabling telemetry may make Remote Control unavailable. These settings apply to Claude Code and should not be treated as universal controls for the entire Claude Desktop application.

Sources and documentation

• Anthropic: appeals
• Claude: supported locations
• Claude Code: configuration files
• Claude Code: data usage and telemetry
• Issue #88692 (user report)

Image source: the official Claude website

Translation editor: Салтанов А.