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claude --resume lists only recent ~10 sessions despite having 38 in ~/.claude/projects #2333
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Description
I have around 38 sessions in ~/.claude/projects/myproject but only around 10 show up when I do claude -r in my myproject dir.
Is there some type of setting or cli arg that I am missing?
Thanks
Activity
coygeek commentedon Aug 16, 2025
Hey, that's a great question. It's a bit unintuitive, but the list you see with
claude --resumeisn't just a simple directory listing of your session files.Based on the documentation and some changelog notes, here's what seems to be happening and a few ways you can get to your older sessions:
The "Why": Conversation Summarization
When you run
claude --resume, Claude Code doesn't just list the files. It runs a background "conversation summarization" process to generate the short descriptions you see in the selector.The most likely reason you're only seeing about 10 is that this summarization process is hitting a limit or an error on one of your older, longer chat histories and stopping early. I noticed in the changelog for version 1.0.77 they specifically mentioned a fix for "token limit errors in conversation summarization."
Workarounds and Solutions
Since you can't directly change the number of sessions it lists, here are a couple of ways to access your older history:
1. The Best Workaround: Resume Directly by Session ID
Since you know the files exist in
~/.claude/projects/myproject/, you can grab the session ID directly from the filename and resume it that way.The session files are usually named something like
00893aaf-19fa-41d2-8238-13269b9b3ca0.jsonl. The filename itself (without the.jsonl) is the session ID.You can resume it directly like this:
This bypasses the interactive selector and should load your session right up.
2. Make Sure You're on the Latest Version
Given the changelog fix I mentioned, the first thing to try is updating Claude Code to the latest version. It might resolve the underlying summarization issue.
3. Check Your Cleanup Settings
This probably isn't your issue since the files are still there, but it's good to know about. Claude Code has a setting that automatically deletes old transcripts. You can find it in
~/.claude/settings.json.{ "cleanupPeriodDays": 30 }The default is 30 days. If you want to keep your sessions for longer, you can increase this number.
Hope this helps you get to those older sessions! The direct resume-by-ID trick should definitely work for you.
github-actions commentedon Dec 4, 2025
This issue has been inactive for 30 days. If the issue is still occurring, please comment to let us know. Otherwise, this issue will be automatically closed in 30 days for housekeeping purposes.
github-actions commentedon Jan 5, 2026
This issue has been automatically closed due to 60 days of inactivity. If you're still experiencing this issue, please open a new issue with updated information.
pchalasani commentedon Jan 5, 2026
Thanks for detailed reply -- looks like this setting isn't there any more?
github-actions commentedon Jan 12, 2026
This issue has been automatically locked since it was closed and has not had any activity for 7 days. If you're experiencing a similar issue, please file a new issue and reference this one if it's relevant.