[BUG] I archived my Claude Cowork chats and they are nowhere to be found.

[peterlobrutto]

Preflight Checklist

• I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
• This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
• I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

I archived (did NOT delete) my Claude Cowork chats, and I am unable to see them anywhere.

There is no Archive section anywhere.
They are not listed under Chats.
They are not listed in any Projects.

What Should Happen?

According to Claude Code,

"To unarchive Cowork chats, do it directly in the Claude.ai web interface:

1. Go to https://claude.ai
2. In the left sidebar, look for an Archived section or a filter/toggle for archived conversations
3. Select the archived Cowork chats you want to restore
4. Use the unarchive/restore option

If you don't see an archived section, check for a menu or settings icon in the sidebar that lets you show
archived chats.

If you're still stuck, you can report the issue or ask for support at:

• https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues (for Claude Code issues)
• Or reach out via the help options within claude.ai itself for account-related questions. "

According to Claude.ai

"In the Claude desktop app and Claude.ai, you can find your archived chats by:

Click on the sidebar (the conversation list on the left)
Look for the "Archived" section or filter at the bottom of the sidebar, or use the search/filter options to show archived conversations

If you're having trouble finding it, the exact location can vary slightly depending on whether you're using the desktop app, web interface, or which version you have. You can also use the search function to find specific conversations by keyword, which will search across both active and archived chats."

Error Messages/Logs

N/A

Steps to Reproduce

Archive Claude chats.

Then try to find them anywhere.

Claude Model

Opus

Is this a regression?

No, this never worked

Last Working Version

No response

Claude Code Version

Claude Code v2.1.30

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

Cursor

Additional Information

No response

[freqyfreqy]

any resolution to this? I had the same problem

[chiho-h]

any resolution to this? I had the same problem :(

[SRMillerick]

I had the same problem too

[caturseptian]

any resolution to this? I had the same problem too

[SRMillerick]

no

…

________________________________ From: Tian ***@***.***> Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2026 3:11 PM To: anthropics/claude-code ***@***.***> Cc: SRMillerick ***@***.***>; Comment ***@***.***> Subject: Re: [anthropics/claude-code] [BUG] I archived my Claude Cowork chats and they are nowhere to be found. (Issue #22931) [https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/13551379?s=20&v=4]caturseptian left a comment (anthropics/claude-code#22931)<#22931 (comment)> any resolution to this? I had the same problem too — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub<#22931 (comment)>, or unsubscribe<https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/A7ZSZGF23CJ2R3LV4WTLQML4N54STAVCNFSM6AAAAACT4FODPCVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZTSNRZG43TQOJVGA>. You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[nicko170]

Just went through this on a Mac - have not tested on windows, but you can find the CoWork files and unarchive them!

This command will list all JSON files for cowork that are archived, atleast on a mac, and you can go change isArchived from true to false in the file, restart Claude, and it comes back! :-)

find "$HOME/Library/Application Support/Claude/local-agent-mode-sessions" -name "local*.json" -exec grep -l '"isArchived":true\|"isArchived": true' {} \;

/Users/nickp/Library/Application Support/Claude/local-agent-mode-sessions/b2df2d6d-87f4-4f18-968c-9ed97c22fb31/a1189ee4-8c6f-448a-9ae4-ec4c7dfd6ae6/local_8f5194d9-ab8a-42e3-a241-31afcdfe742d.json

cat "/Users/nickp/Library/Application Support/Claude/local-agent-mode-sessions/b2df2d6d-87f4-4f18-968c-9ed97c22fb31/a1189ee4-8c6f-448a-9ae4-ec4c7dfd6ae6/local_8f5194d9-ab8a-42e3-a241-31afcdfe742d.json"  | grep Arch
  "isArchived": true,

Surely there'll be a similar thing for Windows as well.

[crsmoore]

Yeah, this appears to be an oversight in the UI/UX. Hopefully it gets fixed!

[mischacoster]

Same here. Hope it gets fixed soon, Cowork changed something on my Mac and I only found out that that change made another application unusable after I archived the chat. Now I have to figure out what Cowork exactly changed..

[razielpanic]

Additional finding: sessions invisible even when NOT archived

Forensic investigation on macOS reveals this is broader than the archive UI. Cowork sessions stored in local-agent-mode-sessions/ can become invisible even with isArchived: false.

Root cause: Two separate session managers coexist in the desktop app:

• LocalAgentModeSessions — manages Cowork sessions → writes to local-agent-mode-sessions/
• LocalSessions — manages Code tab sessions → writes to claude-code-sessions/

The Code tab sidebar only reads from claude-code-sessions/. If the Cowork tab doesn't surface a session (for any reason — scroll position, UI state, update), it effectively disappears. There's no unified session list across the two directories.

Key evidence:

• 23 Cowork sessions in local-agent-mode-sessions/ with isArchived: false, invisible in the UI
• The old directory is still being actively written to (new sessions created today, March 3 2026) — this is not a legacy migration issue, both systems run in parallel
• main.log confirms all 171 events for the affected session routed through LocalAgentModeSessions, with only 2 LocalSessions references (from a manual file copy to restore visibility)
• Session data is fully intact (transcripts, audit logs, uploads) — only the UI link is broken

Workaround (extends @nicko170's approach for the non-archived case):

Copying the session JSON metadata from the old directory to the new one makes them appear in the Code tab:

OLD="$HOME/Library/Application Support/Claude/local-agent-mode-sessions"
NEW="$HOME/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude-code-sessions"

# Find your account/org subdirectory (same in both dirs)
ACCT_ORG=$(ls -d "$OLD"/*/* 2>/dev/null | head -1 | sed "s|$OLD/||")

for f in "$OLD/$ACCT_ORG"/local_*.json; do
    base=$(basename "$f")
    [ ! -f "$NEW/$ACCT_ORG/$base" ] && cp "$f" "$NEW/$ACCT_ORG/$base"
done

VM/Cowork sessions will show "Folder no longer exists" in the Code tab (since their cwd is a VM path like /sessions/...), but conversation history still loads from the server. Related: #29373.

Suggested fix: The app should either read from both directories, or run a migration on startup. The current state silently orphans user data.