Claude Code · finding past work

Find that Claude Code conversation from last month

Short answer: /resume lists your sessions by name or title and lets you filter that list; it isn't a search over everything that was said. To search by content, grep the transcripts in ~/.claude/projects, or ask your AI to search an archive, which also covers sessions Claude Code has already deleted.

What the session picker does

claude --resume or /resume opens a list. Each row shows the session's name, its generated title, a summary or its first prompt, plus time, git branch and size. Typing filters that list, Space previews a session, and Ctrl+A widens it to every project on the machine. (Manage sessions) Searching by what was said inside sessions is an open request (#30744).

Do it yourself: grep

grep -rl "login flow" ~/.claude/projects --include="*.jsonl"

That finds the transcript files that mention a phrase. Two limits: the files are JSON lines full of tool calls, so the hits are noisy; and you can only search what is still on disk, which is the last 30 days unless you changed cleanupPeriodDays.

Tools that search what's on disk

Several open-source tools search or browse the same folder well, for example claude-history, claude-historian and claude-code-history-viewer. They read ~/.claude/projects, so they share its limit: once the sweep deletes a session, it's gone for them too.

Ask your AI instead

With Rootz Archive installed, you ask in plain words and Claude searches every past session it has kept, by content:

"What did we decide about the login flow last month?"
"Find the session where we fixed the flaky payment test."
"Which files did we change when we migrated the database?"

Answers from the archive end with — Source: Rootz Archive · this computer, so you know where they came from. The archive keeps its own copy, so sessions the 30-day sweep has removed are still searchable.

Searching what happened before compaction

When a conversation fills up, Claude compacts it: "full tool outputs and intermediate reasoning are gone" from what Claude can see (Context window). Rootz Archive keeps the exact conversation including everything before each compaction, so you can still search the part Claude no longer remembers.

Questions

Does searching the archive send it anywhere?

The archive and its search run on your computer and send nothing to Rootz. The passages your AI reads to answer you go to your AI's provider, as anything you show it does.

Can I search sessions from other projects?

In the session picker, press Ctrl+A to list sessions from every project on the machine. Rootz Archive searches all the projects it has captured.

Does Rootz Archive replace my transcripts with summaries?

No. It keeps the exact bytes. Any summary is extra, never a replacement.

Install Rootz Archive (free for individual users):

claude plugin marketplace add rootz-global/rootz-archive
claude plugin install rootz-archive@rootz

Then type /rootz-archive:accept in a new session. More about Rootz Archive

Facts from Anthropic's documentation as of October 2026. Written with Claude, reviewed by Rootz.