Where Claude Code keeps your chats

Every session is a file on your own disk, in plain text. Knowing where it is turns "my conversation is gone" into a file you can open.

Last checked 2026-09-19

The location

On Windows:

%USERPROFILE%\.claude\projects\<project>\<session>.jsonl

<project> is an encoded form of the folder the session ran in, and <session> is the session id. Setting CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR moves the whole .claude tree somewhere else. Source: Anthropic's documentation, checked 19 September 2026.

What is inside

JSONL: one JSON object per line, in the order things happened. Each line is a message, a tool call, or a tool result — the whole conversation, including the commands that ran and what they printed. It is plain text, not encrypted, so treat it the way you would treat a log with your work in it.

Read the last few lines of one:

Get-Content "$env:USERPROFILE\.claude\projects\<project>\<session>.jsonl" -Tail 5

They are deleted after 30 days

By default cleanupPeriodDays is 30: transcripts older than that are removed. Sessions started or last continued in Claude Desktop or Cowork are exempt and kept at any age, unless that is overridden. If a month-old conversation matters, copy it out or raise the setting before it goes.

Reading them back

Three options, in order of effort:

1. Open the file. It is text. Ugly, but complete.
2. Resume in Claude Code, which is what the file is for.
3. Import it into an app that turns it back into a readable conversation you can continue.

Eleos does the third: it reads those JSONL files, shows the conversation as a normal chat, and lets you carry on — with whichever AI plan or local model you choose, not necessarily the one that started it. It reads the equivalent stores for Codex and Grok sessions too.

Why this matters more than it sounds

A terminal conversation feels disposable, and then it turns out to hold the only description of why something was built the way it was. The files are the record, and the default is to delete them after a month.

Questions

Where are Claude Code's chats stored on Windows?

%USERPROFILE%\.claude\projects\<project>\<session>.jsonl, one file per session.

Are they encrypted?

No, they are plain-text JSONL on your own disk.

How long are they kept?

Thirty days by default. Desktop and Cowork sessions are kept beyond that.

Can I continue an old session somewhere else?

Yes. Eleos imports the file and continues the conversation in a normal window, on any plan you have signed in.

Where to go next

• Claude Code on Windows: install it and fix the errors
• The AI plans you already pay for, in one app
• A Claude Desktop alternative for Windows