Back To My Claude

Back to My Claude

Recover Claude Desktop conversations after:

1. switching or losing access to an account, or
2. reinstalling/updating Claude Desktop and losing or relocating its profile.

The repository ships as a Claude Code skill, but both Python scripts also run standalone on macOS, Windows, and Linux.

Pick the right recovery path

Symptom	Recovery path	Script
Code → Recents became empty after switching accounts	Import session indexes into the current account/group	scripts/recover.py
Claude was reinstalled; local Code/Cowork history or settings disappeared	Restore or migrate the Claude Desktop profile	scripts/profile_restore.py
Both happened	Restore the profile first, then import indexes across accounts	Both, in that order

Why these are different

Claude Desktop Code uses small index files:

/claude-code-sessions/
    //local_.json

Code → Recents renders only the current account's active group. Full Claude Code transcripts live separately under `~/.claude/projects/**/*.jsonl`.

Reinstallation is a different failure mode: the whole Electron profile may be missing or may have moved. On Windows, for example, older packaged builds can leave data under:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\Claude_*\LocalCache\Roaming\Claude

while a new build uses:

%APPDATA%\Claude

`profile_restore.py` discovers both locations and can restore either a portable archive or a raw profile backup.

Platform	Standard profile	Additional locations discovered
macOS	~/Library/Application Support/Claude	sandboxed ~/Library/Containers/com.anthropic.claude*/.../Claude profiles
Windows	%APPDATA%\Claude	AppX/MSIX %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\Claude_*\LocalCache\Roaming\Claude profiles
Linux	$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/Claude	lowercase claude and claude-desktop variants

Set `CLAUDE_DESKTOP_DIR` on any platform