[BUG] Desktop 2.37337.1: “Group by” option removed from Code tab sidebar — sessions now only grouped by environment

Same regression on claude.ai/code web (Linux, Claude Code CLI 2.1.299), observed 2026-10-14.
Sessions are now a flat list under "Remote Control" / "Cloud" with the repo name only as a subtitle.
A browser tab that was not refreshed still shows the old per-repository groups with the busy/idle dot.
I run a controller + several worker sessions per repository across 7 repositories; the grouped view was the only overview of "which sessions are open under this workspace". Please bring back "Group by → Project" (or workspace), ideally collapsible.

<img width="297" height="387" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/1fab8f6a-3216-4852-9cb6-23fe07d3fe03" />
me alsoe the problem

now only the desktop, but also claude code web. it is too bad to rm this funciton!!!!!!!!!!!

Same regression here, and at organization scale — adding our findings so this gets the weight it deserves.

Context. We are a Team organization (16 seats today, growing to ~50 in the coming months). Our whole way of working with Claude Code is built on one project folder per subject (clients, offers, contracts, infrastructure, internal tools), with a pilot "Core" session per project orchestrating the others. The sidebar grouped by folder was our navigation. On the first migrated workstation, 261 sessions across 31 project folders became one flat list; a shared Windows VM of the same organization is hit too. As the migration reaches each account, every one of our teams will face the same thing: hundreds of sessions dumped into a single unsorted list, with no way to find the one they need.

What happened (Windows 11, Desktop 2.37337.1, auto-updated 2026-10-13). On first launch after the update the account is migrated to the new sidebar: "sidebarMode": "epitaxy", epitaxy-auto-setup-complete.<account>: true, dframe-code-sections … migratedFrom: 1 in %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json. No banner, no changelog entry (the 2026-10-13 note only mentions a Cowork fix), no opt-out. In the new sidebar, Group by only offers None / Status / Date / Environment — "Folder" is gone, and every single-session folder is merged into a "Default" bucket with the folder name reduced to a subtitle. An account not yet migrated, on another machine, still has the classic "Group by: Folder": this is a per-account server-side rollout.

What does NOT work (so others don't lose a day):

• Any combination of Group by / Sort by / Status in the sidebar menu.
• "sidebarMode": "code" in claude_desktop_config.json with the app fully closed — no effect, "code" is routed to "epitaxy" (same finding as #53340, closed without a reply).
• Organization admin settings (Claude Code page, Capabilities page): nothing controls the sidebar layout. No API either.
• Custom sections: they can only group by date / state / none; "project" is refused inside a section (#101555).

Workaround we had to build: one custom section per project folder, created and filled through the ccd_sidebar tools from a Claude Code session (31 sections, ~190 sessions moved by hand). Limits: new sessions still land in "Default" and must be filed by hand; routine runs cannot be filed at all; sections cannot be reordered, so a new folder lands at the bottom; and it must be redone on every machine and every account. Not sustainable for an organization.

What we ask:

1. Bring back Group by: Folder (one header per working directory) in the new sidebar, as the April redesign announcement documented ("group the sidebar by project").
2. Stop migrating accounts silently: a layout change of this size deserves a changelog entry, an in-app explanation and an opt-out, or at least the option to keep the classic layout per account.
3. Auto-file new sessions into the section matching their folder (#98439).

We pay for Claude Code at an organization level and have built our processes on top of it. Rolling out a layout that drops folder grouping to business accounts, without a word, disorganized our teams overnight. Please treat this as the regression it is.

Tip for anyone stuck in the same flat list — let Claude Code tidy it up for you.

The desktop app exposes sidebar tools to Claude Code sessions (ccd_sidebar). From any session on the affected machine, paste this prompt:

Rebuild my Code-tab sidebar by project folder: list all my active sessions (list_sessions, limit 500), create one custom sidebar group per working directory (create_group, in alphabetical order so the sections display alphabetically), move every session into the group of its folder (move_sessions, in batches per folder), and set each section to sort by last activity (set_view with the section id). Skip routine runs and nested side sessions (they cannot be grouped), and tell me how many sessions were filed per folder.

It took a couple of minutes for 261 sessions / 31 folders here. What to expect:

• The sections appear in creation order, so ask for alphabetical creation; a folder added later lands at the bottom (no reorder tool).
• Routine runs stay under the hidden "Routines" section; side sessions spawned from another session stay nested under their parent.
• New sessions still land in "Default": re-run a shorter prompt ("file the new sessions into their folder section") from time to time.
• Sections are per account and per machine: repeat on each.

Not a fix — just a way to keep working until "Group by: Folder" is back.

I use the Claude Mac app and custom Code series groups but need a way to switch to a flat, date-ordered list. BRING IT BACK!

Same on macOS since 2026-10-13: Claude desktop 2.37337.1, Claude Code 2.1.299.

Setup: two Macs on one account. A Mac mini hosts Remote Control sessions for each repository around the clock (claude remote-control --spawn same-dir, plus claude --remote-control <name> sessions), and I work from the desktop app on a laptop.

Before the update, the mini's sessions were grouped by repository in the sidebar. Now they're one flat list under "Remote Control", with the repository shown only as a subtitle.

On my build the filter menu still has Group by, but its choices are None, Status, Date and Environment. Project is gone. Nothing changed on the host: the mini's Remote Control processes have run unchanged since late September and still report each session's repository. So this is the app's grouping, not the sessions' data.

Please bring back Group by → Project, covering local and Remote Control sessions together.

Workaround that restores real per-folder groups (macOS, Desktop 2.37337.1): verified on my machine

Root cause, as far as I can tell: the migration seeds the new sidebar's environments from your session history but caps it at 8 folders (ranked by session count). Every other folder's sessions fall into "Default". The sidebar still groups by folder correctly; it just has no environment for those folders.

Option A (no tools, slower): for each missing folder: Choose environment → New environment, name it, + Add the folder, Create. Its old sessions immediately move out of Default into their own section, and new sessions started in that environment stay there (unlike the custom-section workaround above).

Option B (all at once): add the missing environments directly to the app's store. Editing ccd-session-presets.json does not work; it's only a mirror and is overwritten on launch. The source of truth is the renderer's localStorage key persisted.ccd-session-presets.<accountId> (a LevelDB under ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/Local Storage/leveldb). The app blocks --remote-debugging-port, so the edit has to be done with the app fully quit.

Unofficial and at your own risk: back up the leveldb folder first.

# 1. Quit Claude completely (Cmd+Q) and confirm it's gone:
pgrep -x Claude || echo "quit OK"
# 2. Back up the store
L="$HOME/Library/Application Support/Claude/Local Storage/leveldb"
cp -R "$L" ~/claude-localstorage-backup
# 3. One-time tool setup
mkdir -p ~/ccd-fix && cd ~/ccd-fix && npm init -y >/dev/null && npm i classic-level@1

Save as ~/ccd-fix/add-envs.mjs:

import { ClassicLevel } from 'classic-level';
import { randomUUID } from 'crypto';
import { existsSync } from 'fs';
import path from 'path';
const [dbPath, ...folders] = process.argv.slice(2);
const db = new ClassicLevel(dbPath, { keyEncoding: 'buffer', valueEncoding: 'buffer' });
const re = /persisted\.ccd-session-presets\.[0-9a-f-]{36}$/;   // account-level key, not the .<org> one
const hits = [];
for await (const [k, v] of db.iterator()) if (re.test(k.toString('latin1')) && v[0] === 1) hits.push([k, v]);
if (!hits.length) console.log('no presets key found (is this the right folder? was the app migrated?)');
for (const [k, v] of hits) {
  const j = JSON.parse(v.subarray(1).toString('latin1'));
  const have = new Set(j.state.presets.map(p => p.target?.cwd));
  const now = Date.now(); let n = 0;
  folders.forEach((cwd, i) => {
    cwd = path.resolve(cwd);
    if (have.has(cwd) || !existsSync(cwd)) return;   // skips folders that already have an environment
    j.state.presets.push({ id: randomUUID(), name: path.basename(cwd), createdAt: now - i, lastUsedAt: now - 1000 - i,
                           target: { kind: 'local', cwd }, settings: { worktree: false } });
    n++;
  });
  await db.put(k, Buffer.concat([Buffer.from([1]), Buffer.from(JSON.stringify(j), 'latin1')]));
  console.log(`added ${n}; total environments now ${j.state.presets.length}`);
}
await db.close();

# 4. Run it with every missing folder (use the exact paths your sessions used), then reopen Claude
node ~/ccd-fix/add-envs.mjs "$L" ~/Documents/project-a ~/Documents/project-b "/path/with spaces/project-c"
open -a Claude

To find which folders are missing, the cwd of sessions sitting in Default is in ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude-code-sessions/<account>/<org>/local_*.json (originCwd). Paths with non-Latin-1 characters would need the UTF-16 value format; the script above assumes Latin-1, as the stored value was on my machine.

Result here: 20 of 20 folders back as their own sidebar sections, Default empty, sessions intact. If anything goes wrong, quit Claude and copy the backup folder back over leveldb.

Windows: the same store should be under %APPDATA%\Claude\Local Storage\leveldb (untested).

The real fix still needs to come from Anthropic: seed an environment for every folder with sessions (or restore "Group by → Folder"), and announce migrations like this.

Same here on macOS: Claude desktop 2.37337.1, Claude Code 2.1.275, Max subscription. Auto-updated around 2026-10-13/14.

I had the Code tab set up with one heading per project folder. After the update, several projects lost their heading entirely (one with 7 sessions), and their sessions were mixed in with unrelated projects under a "Local" section. Sessions from a parent folder or subfolder of a project were split away from it, and most sessions were hidden behind "Show more". With no notice or explanation in the app, it looked like my projects and sessions had been deleted. They hadn't, but I only found that out by having Claude query the session list.

Workaround: I had Claude create a custom sidebar group for each of my 15 project folders and move ~127 sessions into them. New sessions still don't file themselves, so this isn't a real fix.

Please:

1. Bring back Group by → Folder/Project.
2. Stop changing the sidebar layout without warning. At minimum, show an in-app notice and give an opt-out to keep the previous layout.
3. Auto-file new sessions into the custom group that matches their folder.

This is one of many unannounced UI changes that keep moving things around in the desktop app. As a paying subscriber, I'm seriously considering cancelling over it.

Same regression here: Windows 11, Desktop 2.37337.1, Max plan, auto-updated 2026-10-14.

I had ~36 project folders under C:\COWORK\CODE, each with its own sidebar header. After the update, sessions were mixed into groups that no longer matched their folders.

Confirming the workaround described above by @klona works on Windows. From a single desktop session, I asked Claude to read every session's working folder, create one group per folder and move each session into it, without archiving or deleting anything. Result: 171 sessions read, 163 moved into 32 folder-named groups in one run, then the 7 old empty groups deleted.

Two details not mentioned yet, in case they save someone time:

• Archived sessions cannot be moved between groups. They keep the group they had before being archived, so deleting that old group leaves them orphaned. Unarchive, move, then archive again.
• Nested (side) sessions follow their parent's group, even when their own working folder is different.

Still a workaround, not a fix. Please bring back "Group by -> Folder" and announce sidebar migrations like this one in the changelog, with an opt-out.

Same issue Claude Code on Mac , please bring back Group by Folder as soon as possible!

As a temporary workaround, I built a small open-source app that lists all Claude Code sessions grouped by folder and can open any of them in the Claude desktop app: https://github.com/AlBannaTechno/claude-sessions-list

I have to believe this was an accidental release. There's nothing in the changelog and no warning about it. I really don't mind change if it is well-designed and makes life easier. But we don't even know what the intent is with this environment-first design. It makes absolutely no sense for my workflow--I usually have several session in the same local repo and have a dozen or so repos, so the "group by folder" option is exactly aligned to the type of work I do. Clause Desktop for Windows Version 2.37337.1 (ba51ab).

Same update (2.37337.1, Oct 13) broke my workflow too. In my case it's the new side panel: the Environment card can't be hidden, which makes split view unusable (#102233). Like this sidebar change, it shipped with no notice and no opt-out.

I asked Anthropic support for a refund and was refused because I'm past the refund window. I'm in Taiwan and plan to file a complaint with the Consumer Protection Committee if this isn't resolved. Unannounced changes that remove core functionality from a paid product shouldn't be "too bad, no refund."

And a suggestion: if you're going to build product changes with AI, have a human engineer actually use the result before shipping it. Anyone who tried split view for five minutes would have noticed a panel you can't close.

Same here on Windows 11, desktop 2.37337.1. Another workflow this breaks:

• About 20 active sessions across ~10 projects. Most of them run on a Mac via Remote Control (one claude remote-control per project folder), plus a few local Windows sessions and a few over SSH.
• With "Group by: Environment", nearly everything lands in one or two buckets ("Remote Control" / "This computer"), so sessions from different projects are mixed together. The project now only appears as faint metadata under each session name, which is hard to scan.
• "Group by" offers only None / Status / Date / Environment, and there is no Project option anymore. Manual "New section" is not a real substitute, because every new session would have to be filed by hand.

Please bring back "Group by: Project", or nest projects under each environment (similar to #101555). Thanks!

Building on @drdrpeterson's Option B above: ccd-session-presets.json is not only a mirror. At launch the app reads it and merges in any local environment it doesn't already have, but only while the account's localStorage state (persisted.ccd-session-presets.<accountId>) has "fileMirrored": false. The first launch after the update set it to true; from then on the ccd-session-presets.json is ignored and rewritten, which is why editing the json alone gets reverted.

Editing the ccd-session-presets.json with all of the environments you want, and then setting "fileMirrored": false while the app is quit, and then starting the app again, works to edit environments via script with a smaller direct change to internal files.

Bizarre release; all structure of the app/setup should be able to be controlled by scripts/claude.