Allow removing/hiding projects from the Code sidebar (recent-folders list)

Open 💬 0 comments Opened Jun 25, 2026 by larskohlenberg

Platform: Claude Desktop for macOS (v1.15200.0), "Code" tab (epitaxy sidebar)

Problem

The Code sidebar lists recently opened project folders, but there is no way to remove an entry. Stale entries pile up — folders I've renamed, deleted, archived, or one-off experiments stay in the list forever. There is no right-click menu, no hover "remove" control, and the production build has no DevTools.

What doesn't work (things I tried)

The sidebar list is not sourced from the obvious config files. I cleaned all of these and fully restarted the app — the entries remained:

  • ~/.claude.json (projects)
  • ~/.claude/projects/<encoded-dir>/ (session history)
  • ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (epitaxy-folder-permission-mode, trusted folders, perm-mode-acks)
  • ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/git-worktrees.json

The list actually lives in the app's localStorage (Chromium leveldb), under keys like persisted.dframe-local-slice and LSS-code-ghe-repos-<accountId>. Because that store is app-managed, compressed, and locked while the app runs — and DevTools is disabled — the only way a user can currently clear it is to delete the entire Local Storage folder, which wipes all sidebar projects plus unrelated UI state (drafts, pins, seen-badges). That's a sledgehammer for a cosmetic cleanup.

Requested

  1. A "Remove from list" / "Hide" action on each Code sidebar entry (right-click context menu or hover affordance).
  2. Optionally, auto-prune entries whose folder no longer exists on disk.
  3. Bonus: gracefully handle renamed project folders so a rename doesn't orphan history/sidebar state under the old path.

Why it matters

For anyone juggling many local projects, the sidebar becomes cluttered with dead entries and there's no supported way to tidy it. A simple remove action would fix it.

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