Claude Session Migrator

Transfer, recover, backup and migrate Claude Code sessions between accounts automatically.

A lightweight, dependency-free Python utility that helps you recover, back up, and migrate Claude Code sessions between accounts on Windows. It automatically locates your local Claude session folder and safely moves conversation history without overwriting existing files.

The easiest way to use this tool. No installation, no Python required.

1. 👉 Download claude-session-migrator.exe from the latest Release
2. Quit Claude Desktop.
3. Double-click the .exe. It finds your session folders and copies your old chats automatically.
4. Fully close Claude via Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc → right-click each Claude process → End task).
5. Reopen Claude Desktop — your old chats are back. 🎉

Prefer running the Python script instead? See the Step-by-Step Guide below.

• 🔍 Automatic session folder detection — finds your Claude session directory via %APPDATA%
• ♻️ Recover lost Claude chats — restore conversations after switching accounts or reinstalling
• 🔄 Transfer sessions between accounts — move history from an old session into your current one
• 💾 Backup local Claude session files — keep a copy before reinstalling Claude Code
• 🛡️ Safe migration — never overwrites files that already exist in the destination
• 🪟 Windows support — built for the Windows AppData\Roaming layout

If your Claude conversations disappeared after switching accounts, reinstalling Claude, or clearing local data, this tool can help recover locally stored session files.

Move session files from an older Claude account session into a newer one so your conversation history follows you.

Create a backup of your local session files before reinstalling Claude Code or migrating to a new machine.

git clone https://github.com/USERNAME/claude-session-migrator.git
cd claude-session-migrator
python migrate_sessions.py

Requires Python 3.6+. No third-party dependencies — uses only the standard library (os, shutil, pathlib).

Follow these steps exactly:

1. Install Python (3.6 or newer) from python.org if you don't have it. During install, tick "Add Python to PATH".
2. Download this tool — click the green Code button above → Download ZIP, then unzip it. (Or use git clone, see Installation.)
3. Close Claude completely before running. Quit the Claude Desktop app.
4. Open the folder where you unzipped the files.
5. Run the script — open a terminal in that folder and type:

   python migrate_sessions.py

   The tool finds your session folders automatically and copies your old chat files into your current session. It prints each file as it copies.
6. Fully close Claude via Task Manager. This is important — closing the window is not enough:
   • Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager.
   • Find every Claude process under the Processes tab.
   • Right-click each one → End task.
7. Reopen Claude Desktop. Your old chats should now appear in your current account. 🎉

If you don't see them right away, give it a few seconds — Claude reloads the session files on startup.

1. Locates %APPDATA%\Claude\claude-code-sessions.
2. Lists the timestamped session folders inside it.
3. Treats the oldest folder as the source and the newest as the destination.
4. Copies every .json / .jsonl session file from source to destination, skipping any file that already exists.

⚠️ Always back up your data first. This tool copies files (it does not delete the source), but you should keep your own backup before running any migration utility.

Windows:

%APPDATA%\Claude\claude-code-sessions

See FAQ.md for answers to common questions about transferring, recovering, and backing up Claude sessions.

Contributions are welcome! See CONTRIBUTING.md.

MIT

claude session migration, claude chat recovery, claude conversation transfer, claude history recovery, claude code session backup, claude account migration, claude session transfer, anthropic claude session recovery