[BUG] Local session history disappears after VS Code restart

Found 3 possible duplicate issues:

1. https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/45424
2. https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/41414
3. https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/44625

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🤖 Generated with Claude Code

I've had this issue. Any ideas whether the sessions are retrievable?

Same here, looking for a fix to this it is quite annoying.

I've had this issue. Any ideas whether the sessions are retrievable?

Path: /Users/harry/.claude/projects

All sessions are stored locally on your system. The exact path depends on your OS, but it typically follows your user directory and is organized per project.

If you don’t want to manually search, you can ask Claude Code to scan that folder. While asking, describe what you did in that session (features worked on, files edited, topic, etc.) so it can find the correct one faster. It will:

• Find your previous sessions
• Summarize what you did (titles, actions, etc.)
• Provide the exact session ID
• Tell you the command needed to resume that session

How to resume a session

From your terminal, run:

claude chat --resume <session-id>

Steps to make it appear back in UI

1. Close the Claude UI / VS Code panel
2. Resume the session using the terminal command above
3. Exit the session (Ctrl+C or close terminal)
4. Reopen VS Code

The session will now reappear in the Claude chat UI.

I am having the same issue. Very annoying. I cannot make it re-appear in VS Code. Please fix or at least provide a workaround to re-import sessions into the UI. This is very annoying. Using Windows 11 here with current version of VS Code and Claude Code Extension.

here is a solution
https://youtu.be/Zlgky62oPuk?si=UIaosll59BP30AFr

me what i did i went here and copied the contents from the old folder then pasted them in the new folder here under projects

C:\Users\bk\.claude\projects
C:\Users\<windows logged in user account>\.claude\projects

Here's what fixed this for me 👇

The sessions aren't actually lost — Claude Code hides the older ones from the panel and auto-deletes them after a while, so they quietly disappear from the UI even though they still exist.

I built a small free desktop app — Brightgoal Hub — that solves exactly this:

• 🗂️ Shows every session across all your projects (including the ones missing from the panel) — grouped, searchable, with the real last message as a preview, so unreliable names stop being a problem
• ▶️ One-click resume straight back into the VS Code Claude Code panel (or a terminal)
• 🛡️ Stops Claude Code from auto-deleting your old sessions — so you never lose one again

⬇️ Download for macOS & Windows →

Unsigned build for now — on macOS right-click → Open the first time; on Windows choose More info → Run anyway.

Hope it helps 🙏

@Harvindar994 what programming lunguage did u use to make that windows app

@bloodykheeng TypeScript + React + Electron. The UI is built with shadcn/ui and Tailwind CSS, bundled with Vite, and packaged as a native desktop app with electron-builder. it's for both Windows & Mac

The intermittency is the tell — it points to the extension's 64KB read buffer. When building the sidebar list, the extension reads only the first and last 64KB of each transcript file. If your session grew long enough that the title entry (custom-title or ai-title) landed in the middle, outside those windows, the session gets silently skipped. Short sessions stay visible; longer ones drop out after restart. The transcript files are intact, which is why claude --resume <session-id> works.

Quickest workaround while the upstream bug is open: claude --list in the integrated terminal. It reads ~/.claude/projects/ directly, bypassing the extension's session cache entirely, so it surfaces everything regardless of size.

For sessions already dropped from the list, DeveloperAlly/claude-code-survival-toolkit has scripts/recover-dropped-sessions.sh — a macOS bash script that reads the extension's workspace SQLite database, compares it against what's on disk, and injects the missing entries back in. Run it with VS Code closed; it has a dry-run mode.

My toolkit, BasedGPT/claude-code-session-recovery, covers the Desktop app's metadata layer rather than the VS Code extension sidebar — but diagnose.py runs on macOS and will tell you whether transcript files are intact and how many exist on disk. Useful if you want a full picture before touching anything.

If it helps, a ⭐ on BasedGPT/claude-code-session-recovery is always appreciated.

Hey team,
Any plans to fix the extension properly?

Tip: you can use Opus/Fable to get the job done... Hope Anthropic devs have access to it 😉

If you need some inspiration, look at VS Code Chat. It's amazing.
Never lost a single session there plus makes it very easy to run several sessions at the same time, with good visibility on the progress.

how is that this is still broken... having the same issue on Windows

I'm still experiencing this issue every day, because I have a lot of projects I like to switch between.

E.g. in VS Code, using CTRL+R to open a recent project, and then going back to the directory I came from just empties the history.

@Harvindar994 instructions sadly does nothing for me. Yes I can see the chat history in claude code CLI, but they will not appear in VS code history no matter what I do.

That workaround shouldn't be the fix anyway!