Project list shows deleted projects that cannot be removed

Found 3 possible duplicate issues:

1. https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/35187
2. https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/34115
3. https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/30605

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Closing as duplicate of #35187. Adding my repro details there instead.

Just wanted to flag that similar issues (#35187, #34115, #30605) have all been closed as duplicates, yet the underlying problem remains unsolved. There is still no way to remove individual projects from the recent projects list in Claude Code desktop app. Keeping this issue open in hopes it gets proper attention.

Also opened #40842 to flag a process issue: the duplicate detection system is closing valid bug reports without verifying that the referenced issues were actually resolved. In this case, all three duplicate references (#35187, #34115, #30605) are themselves closed — not because the bug was fixed, but because they were also marked as duplicates. The actual bug (no way to remove projects from the recent list) remains unresolved.

I edited ~/.claude/history.jsonl, which removed the CLI history, but it did not affect the desktop app’s project list. That list appears to be stored in LevelDB, which does not seem safe to modify manually.

Remove a Project from Claude Code Project List

Clean up these 4 locations, then restart:

1. ~/.claude/sessions/*.json

Delete any session file with "cwd" pointing to the project path.

2. ~/.claude/history.jsonl

Remove lines with "project":"/path/to/your/project".

3. ~/.claude.json

Remove the project config block under the projects key (search for your project path).

4. Desktop app session file (the key one)

~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude-code-sessions/<org-id>/<user-id>/

Find and delete any .json file where "cwd" matches your project path. The desktop app builds its project dropdown from session cwd fields.

5. ~/.claude/projects/

Delete the project directory if it exists (path encoded with dashes, e.g. /Users/foo/MyProject becomes -Users-foo-MyProject).

Then restart

Quit Claude desktop (Cmd+Q) and reopen.

Thanks for the detailed steps! I tried all 5 locations you mentioned:

1. ~/.claude/sessions/ — No session files referencing the deleted project were found.
2. ~/.claude/history.jsonl — No references found.
3. ~/.claude.json — Found and removed the project entry under the projects key. ✅
4. Desktop App Session Files (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude-code-sessions/) — The directory was empty, no session JSON files found.
5. ~/.claude/projects/ — No directory existed for this project.

After removing the entry from ~/.claude.json, the project still appeared in the list. So I went further:

1. ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/Local Storage/leveldb/ — Found a "website" reference in 002173.log via strings. Deleted the entire leveldb/ directory, restarted the app. UI settings reset (theme went back to default), but the project still shows up in the list.

1. Searched all files under ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/ with strings | grep "website" — found hits in Cache/Cache_Data/, Code Cache/js/, and IndexedDB/ but these seem to be generic web content caches, not project config.

The project entry seems to persist somewhere I haven't been able to locate. The project directory (~/Desktop/website) was already deleted. Quit and relaunched the app (Cmd+Q) after each attempt. Could it be synced from the server side (claude.ai account)?

Paste the full content of the post “Remove a Project from Claude Code Project List” into your Claude Desktop Code window. Add one additional line: “Save it as /removet-project skill”, then submit it.

Next, type /removet-project and select the project you want to remove. After that, quit and restart Claude Desktop to confirm that the project has been removed from the list.

Description

There is no UI option to remove a cloud/GitHub-linked project from the Claude Code project dropdown — in either the desktop app or the claude.ai/code web interface.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Use Claude Code with a GitHub-connected repository (e.g. via claude.ai/code "Select a repository")
2. Delete the GitHub repo
3. The project still appears in the "All projects" dropdown in both the desktop app and claude.ai/code
4. There is no "Delete project" or "Remove project" option anywhere in the UI

Current Workaround

The only way to remove the project is to:

1. Go to claude.ai/code in a browser
2. Select the project from the dropdown
3. Show all sessions (set filter to Status: All, Environment: All)
4. Individually delete every session under that project using the trash icon on each session
5. After all sessions are deleted, the project disappears from the dropdown

This is tedious and non-obvious. Users would not discover this on their own.

What Doesn't Work

• Deleting local session files (~/.claude/sessions/, ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude-code-sessions/)
• Clearing LevelDB entries (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/Local Storage/leveldb/)
• Removing entries from ~/.claude.json or ~/.claude/projects/

All of these get re-synced from the cloud on next app launch.

Expected Behavior

• A "Remove project" or "Delete project" option in the project dropdown (right-click or hover action)
• Or a project settings page with a delete option

Environment

• Claude Code desktop app (macOS)
• claude.ai/code web interface

This continues in the current Claude desktop app. Some days, when you start up, you can't get the little X to delete the project document from the sidebar, and there's no other way to do it. Sometimes rebooting the app helps. This is using Mac Desktop Claude 1.7196.0 (2dbd78) 2026-05-12T05:34:40.000Z and 26.5 (25F71) - It's a very annoying bug because it immediately impacts the workflow of downloading a new document and then re‑uploading it to the project documents.

Closing for now — inactive for too long. Please open a new issue if this is still relevant.