Desktop Sessions Discovery

Claude Desktop Sessions Discovery Toolkit

Claude desktop app (Mac/Windows native) stores sessions per <accountId>/<orgId>/. When you switch accounts, old sessions become invisible in UI — they remain on disk but LocalSessionManager.loadSessions() only reads the active accountId folder.

Related reports: #48511 was opened 2026-04-15 and is closed as not planned; #26452 was opened 2026-02-18 and remains open as checked 2026-09-06. These are version-specific user reports, not proof that the installed build has the same cause or that a fix does not exist.

This skill is a community workaround. Use at your own risk — see Caveats.

Storage paths (reverse-engineered, NOT in official Anthropic docs)

Source: bundled JS .vite/build/index.js line 771: const $6t="claude-code-sessions". May change in any release.

Schema of local_*.json

{
  "sessionId": "uuid",
  "cliSessionId": "uuid",
  "cwd": "C:\\path\\to\\project",
  "originCwd": "...",
  "createdAt": <unix ms timestamp OR ISO string>,
  "lastActivityAt": <unix ms timestamp OR ISO string>,
  "model": "claude-opus-4-7-...",
  "effort": "default",
  "isArchived": false,
  "title": "Human-readable title shown in UI",
  "permissionMode": "default",
  "remoteMcpServersConfig": [],
  "completedTurns": 12
}

NB: timestamp format is inconsistent — some sessions use Unix ms (int), others ISO string. Parser must handle both.

Four operations

1. Registry — interactive HTML browse (recommended starting point)

Script: scripts/sessions_registry.py

python scripts/sessions_registry.py                # generate + auto-open in default browser
python scripts/sessions_registry.py --no-open      # generate only
python scripts/sessions_registry.py --output /custom/path.html

Produces a self-contained HTML registry with:

• Live JS search by title / cwd / sessionId substring
• Sort by recency / turns count / title A-Z / size
• Filter: hide 0-turn auto-runs ("Morning digest", "Observer daily analysis"), hide already-restored
• Per-accountId collapsible sections, active accountId highlighted green
• Selectable session ID per session — select and copy it; the page does not perform a restore
• "RESTORED" badge for sessions already migrated (read from ~/.claude/desktop-migrations.jsonl)
• Includes BOTH claude-code-sessions/ (current) AND local-agent-mode-sessions/ (legacy pre-Feb 2026)

Use when the user wants to browse the archive visually. When the user has already selected and authorized a specific restore, the agent performs the scoped dry-run, backup/copy and verification itself through available approved tools; do not assign clipboard/terminal work to the user. A generated restore command is an input to inspect, not authorization by itself.

2. Inventory — full picture (text)

Script: scripts/sessions_inventory.py

Scans all <accountId>/<orgId>/local_*.json, prints grouped table with title/cwd/size/lastActivityAt sorted by recency. Includes cross-account view (which projects appear in multiple accountIds — useful when same user worked on the same project under different accounts).

3. Find — search by title, cwd, or session ID substring (text)

Script: scripts/sessions_find.py

python sessions_find.py "<query>"                  # substring in title, cwd, or session ID
python sessions_find.py "<query>" --account <prefix>  # filter by accountId
python sessions_find.py --since 2026-04-01         # date filter
python sessions_find.py --untitled                  # parse-failed or empty

Output is top-N matches sorted by recency, with copy-pasteable restore command.

4. Restore — selective single-session migration

Script: scripts/sessions_restore.py

python sessions_restore.py <sid8>             # auto-detect active accountId
python sessions_restore.py <sid8> --to <acct> # explicit target
python sessions_restore.py <sid8> --dry-run   # plan only

Behaviour:

1. Find source session by sessionId substring (8 chars usually unique)
2. Detect active accountId by latest mtime (heuristic)
3. Copy local_<sid>.json into <targetAcct>/<sameOrgId>/
4. Verify byte-for-byte match before declaring success (proof loop)
5. Append to ~/.claude/desktop-migrations.jsonl audit log
6. Source kept as backup, never deleted

After a verified copy, inspect the current app's documented reload/restart requirement and active work before restarting. File parity alone does not prove a session is visible or resumable. The default target-account detection is an mtime heuristic: inspect the signed-in destination and use explicit --to for an authorized restore; never treat newest mtime as account authority.

Caveats and risks