[BUG] Desktop: Remote Control session pin state does not sync live across devices — the other device only picks it up after a full app restart

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
• [x] This is a single bug report
• [x] Versions in use are listed below (desktop app 1.32885.1, bundled Claude Code 2.1.234)

What's Wrong?

Pinning a Remote Control session on one signed-in device never propagates to another signed-in device while that second device's app is running.

I pin an RC session in the Claude desktop app on Windows — it moves into the Pinned section there. On the macOS desktop app, signed in to the same account and running the whole time, that same session stays unpinned indefinitely. No error, no toast, nothing in the UI to suggest anything is out of date.

Fully quitting and reopening the macOS app makes the pin show up correctly. So the pin is persisted account-side — it is simply never pushed to clients that are already open. It looks like the pinned set is read once at app start and then only mutated by local pin/unpin actions, with no server push and no refetch.

Because the pin itself never lands live, I could not test unpin propagation separately: with the two devices already disagreeing about the pinned state, unpinning on Windows has nothing to compare against on macOS. Most likely it travels the same (non-existent) path.

What Should Happen?

Pin state is clearly account-level and already durable — it survives a restart on the other device. It should therefore reach every signed-in client as soon as it changes, the same way the session list itself does. Both machines should converge on the same pinned set without an app restart.

Error Messages/Logs

None. There is no error and no visible indication that the second device is showing stale state.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Sign in to the Claude desktop app on two machines with the same account — one Windows 11, one macOS. Leave both running with the Claude Code session list visible.
2. Have a Remote Control session that is listed on both devices.
3. On Windows, pin that session. It moves into the Pinned section on Windows.
4. Switch to the macOS machine without restarting its app, and look at the same session list.
5. Bug: the session is still unpinned there. It never becomes pinned, however long you wait, and navigating around the app does not pull the new state either.
6. Fully quit and reopen the macOS app → the session now correctly appears as pinned.

Direction tested: Windows → macOS. The reverse direction (pin on macOS, observe on Windows) was not tested.

Claude Model

Not applicable — this is client-side UI state sync, not model behavior.

Is this a regression?

I don't know.

Version

Both devices run the same desktop app build, so this is not version skew:

• Claude desktop app, Windows 11 (MSIX): 1.32885.1
• Claude desktop app, macOS: 1.32885.1
• Claude Code bundled in the desktop app: 2.1.234
• Claude Code CLI on PATH (Windows): 2.1.229 (latest published at the time of writing: 2.1.237)

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

Windows (paired with a macOS device)

Terminal/Shell

Not terminal-specific — this is the desktop app UI.

Additional Information

• Both devices are signed in to the same account and run the identical app build 1.32885.1, so the divergence is not a rollout or version-skew artifact.
• The key detail for diagnosis: the pin does survive a restart on the second device, so persistence works; only live propagation to already-open clients is missing.
• Possibly related, but distinct: #78679 (mobile Code tab has no Pinned section at all, so desktop/web pins never surface on mobile). This report is about two desktop clients that both have the Pinned section, and about live propagation between them.