Web (claude.ai/code): session groups don't persist across environments/devices — sessions appear "Ungrouped"

Status Open

Reported on v2.1.160

Maintainer reply None cached

Activity 7 comments · opened Jun 3, 2026

What happened

In Claude Code on the web (claude.ai/code, "Research preview"), I organize sessions
into named groups in the sidebar on one device/environment. When I open Claude Code
from a different device, the sessions still appear (they're tied to my account),
but the group assignment is gone — every session falls under "Ungrouped".

So sessions sync across devices, but the grouping/organization layer does not.

Steps to reproduce

On device A, open claude.ai/code and place one or more sessions into a named group.
Open claude.ai/code on device B (same account).
Observe: the same sessions are listed, but the group is not shown — they appear as Ungrouped.

Expected

Group assignments should follow the account (like the sessions do), so the same
organization is visible from any device/environment.

Actual

Group assignments do not travel; sessions show as Ungrouped on the other device.

Technical note (local investigation)

The Claude Code instance runs on my own Linux server. I inspected ~/.claude/:

sessions/*.json -> only process registry (pid, sessionId, cwd, version).
projects/<hash>/*.jsonl -> conversation transcripts.
bridge-pointer.json -> references a cloud sessionId + environmentId.
A search for any structural group key (group, groupId, groupName, folder,

tags, ...) across ~/.claude returned nothing.

So grouping metadata is not stored locally — it appears to be managed server-side,
seemingly scoped to the environment rather than the account, which would explain why it
doesn't appear from a different device.

Environment

Claude Code version: 2.1.160
Surface: claude.ai/code (web, Research preview)
Client runs against a self-hosted Linux environment

View original on GitHub ↗

6 Comments

github-actions[bot] · 2 months ago

Found 1 possible duplicate issue:

https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/61553

This issue will be automatically closed as a duplicate in 3 days.

If your issue is a duplicate, please close it and 👍 the existing issue instead
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rodolfo-integranube · 2 months ago

Thanks @github-actions. Related to #61553, but I believe this is a distinct surface rather than a duplicate:

#61553 is about groups not persisting across desktop windows (same machine), labeled area:desktop / platform:macos / enhancement.
This issue is about groups not persisting across devices/environments on the web (claude.ai/code), and triage labeled it bug / area:claude-code-web / platform:web.

Same likely root cause (group assignments aren't account-synced the way conversations are), but different surfaces and platforms. Keeping this open to track the web/cross-device case; happy to consolidate if the team prefers.

alger-ortin-voodoo · 2 months ago

Same problem on Claude Desktop (Windows 11), so this isn't web-only — worth broadening
the scope.

Sessions sync across my laptop and desktop via the account, but my custom sidebar groups
don't follow them; I have to rebuild the organization on each machine.

One correction to the "server-side scoped to the environment" theory, at least for Desktop:
the grouping is persisted machine-locally, which is why it never travels:

%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json → preferences.epitaxyPrefs holds the

session→group assignments and order

%APPDATA%\Claude\Local Storage (Electron leveldb) → holds the group names

Neither store syncs. So the fix likely differs by surface (web vs Desktop), but the
user-facing ask is identical: custom session grouping (names + membership + order) should
roam with the account the way sessions already do. +1

kdober · 2 months ago

This is happening to me on the Claude desktop. Every time I go between my personal account and my Teams account, half of my chat's lose the grouping. This is very annoying and getting worse with time (more chats to re-group every time!)

stevesunypoly · 1 month ago

Groups simply disappear on my mac Claude 1.22209.0 (77c938) 2026-07-16T05:39:45.000Z

MikeyJarrell · 1 month ago

Corroborating from the macOS desktop app (1.22209.3), with mechanism detail that supports keeping this open as distinct from #61553:

Grouping state is stored client-side per machine, in the Electron app's Local Storage (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/Local Storage/leveldb), under customGroupsByScope keyed by <orgUuid>/<userUuid>, with assignments keyed by local session identity ("code:local_<sessionUUID>": "cg-<groupId>"). Nothing about the structure is account-level, so cross-device loss isn't a sync bug that intermittently fails — under the current design there is simply no server-side home for group membership, while sessions themselves do sync via the account. Any second device necessarily renders synced sessions as Ungrouped.

That also makes this structurally different from #61553: windows on the same machine share this Local Storage, so that was a state-propagation bug; this issue needs group metadata to move server-side (account-scoped) to be fixable at all.

Related pitfall for anyone who lands here with "my groups emptied on the same machine": local transcript retention (cleanupPeriodDays, default 30 days) deletes grouped sessions out from under intact assignments — details in https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/73930#issuecomment-5025596895.

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