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How to Find and Resume Claude Code Conversation History

Use Claude Code’s documented resume and continue commands to reopen conversations, with notes on lookup scope, version behavior and message-text search.

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To reopen an earlier Claude Code conversation, run claude --resume (or claude -r) and choose a session from the picker, or provide its session ID or name. To reopen the most recent conversation in the current directory, run claude --continue (or claude -c). These commands find and resume sessions; Anthropic’s CLI reference does not document a built-in command for searching the words inside old messages.

Choose the right way to find a conversation

What you know or want Use What it does
You want to choose an earlier session claude --resume or claude -r Opens the interactive session picker. You can also supply a session ID or name.
You want the most recent conversation in the current directory claude --continue or claude -c Continues the latest eligible conversation for that directory.
You have the transcript file’s absolute path claude --resume /absolute/path/to/session.jsonl Resumes the session from its .jsonl transcript file.
You remember a phrase, but not which session contains it No documented built-in full-text search command The reviewed CLI reference explains session selection and resumption, not searching message text.

These commands are documented in Anthropic’s Claude Code CLI reference.

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Resume a particular session

  1. Open a terminal in the relevant project directory.

  2. Run claude --resume to open the session picker, then select the conversation you want.

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  3. If you already know the session ID or name, pass it directly: claude --resume "SESSION_ID_OR_NAME". The reference also documents the shorter form claude -r "SESSION_ID_OR_NAME" "query", which resumes that session with a query.

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In the current CLI reference, lookup by session ID checks the current project and its Git worktrees, then other projects on the machine. The picker and name search also include sessions that added the current directory with /add-dir. This lookup scope changed in version 2.1.223: before v2.1.223, ID lookup was limited to the current project and its Git worktrees.

Continue the latest conversation in this directory

Run claude --continue or claude -c when you want to carry on the most recent eligible conversation in the current directory rather than pick a particular session.

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There are session-type exceptions. In standard interactive use, --continue skips sessions started with claude -p, sessions created through the Agent SDK, and sessions whose first prompt was /loop. The CLI reference documents claude -p --continue for continuing print-mode, SDK, and /loop sessions. Its treatment of some finished background sessions is version-dependent, so check the current reference if that case applies.

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Resume from a transcript file

If you already have the absolute path to a session’s .jsonl transcript, pass that path to --resume in place of a session ID. For example:

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claude --resume /absolute/path/to/session.jsonl

This method depends on already knowing the file path. Anthropic’s reviewed CLI reference does not establish a default transcript directory, so there is no supported location to assume when looking for the file.

If the session you expect is missing

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Finding words inside old messages is a different task

Resuming a session helps you return to a conversation, but it is not the same as searching all conversation text for a phrase. The reviewed Anthropic documentation does not confirm a built-in full-text history search command or a stable default transcript location. It therefore does not support a precise shell recipe for searching every past message. See the CLI reference for the documented session commands; do not assume that a phrase search is available through them.

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