Resume Claude Code Sessions After Restart

Close your terminal mid-session? Claude Code saves conversation history automatically. Resume the exact session instead of starting fresh.

Continue Most Recent Session

Restart Claude Code and pick up where you left off:

claude --continue

This loads your most recent conversation with full context—messages, code changes, and checkpoint history.

Resume Specific Session

List all saved sessions and choose one:

claude --resume

Interactive menu appears with session timestamps and first message. Navigate with arrow keys and press Enter.

Resume by ID

If you know the session ID:

claude --resume <sessionId>
# or short form
claude -r "<sessionId>"

Session IDs are UUIDs shown in the session list or stored in ~/.claude/sessions/.

Handle Stuck Sessions

Claude hangs but you want to keep the context? Interrupt and resume:

# Press Ctrl+C to interrupt
# Then immediately continue
claude --continue

This retries the last request in the same session without losing conversation history.

Session Resumption vs Rewind

Resume restores a conversation. Rewind rolls back changes within a session.

When to Resume

• After closing the terminal
• When switching between projects
• After system restart
• To continue from different machine (if syncing session files)

When to Rewind

• Undo recent code changes
• Return to earlier conversation state
• Test different approaches from same checkpoint

Press Esc twice or type /rewind to open the checkpoint menu. Choose “conversation only”, “code only”, or both.

Session Persistence

Sessions persist across restarts. Checkpoints remain accessible after resuming.

# Create checkpoint mid-session
/checkpoint

# Later, after restart
claude --continue
# Then rewind to that checkpoint
/rewind

Checkpoint names sync with resumed sessions, so you can restore specific states even after closing Claude Code.

Environment Differences

Terminal CLI

• claude --continue and claude --resume work out of the box
• Sessions stored in ~/.claude/sessions/
• Full checkpoint history available after resume

VS Code Extension

• Conversations auto-save to workspace
• Reopen workspace to continue previous session
• Use Command Palette → “Claude Code: Manage Conversations” to switch sessions

Terminal CLI offers more explicit session control. VS Code binds sessions to workspaces.

Common Scenarios

Long-running task with context limit approaching:

# Before hitting limit, create checkpoint
/checkpoint
# Exit and continue in fresh instance
claude --continue

Working on multiple projects:

# Project A
claude
# ... work ...
# Exit, switch to Project B
claude
# ... work ...
# Back to Project A
claude --resume
# Select Project A session from list

System crash recovery:

# After unexpected shutdown
claude --continue
# Picks up from last auto-saved state

Important Notes

• Sessions auto-save after every message exchange
• --continue always loads the most recent session
• --resume without ID shows interactive picker
• Ctrl+C doesn’t corrupt sessions—safe to interrupt and resume
• Checkpoint metadata persists across resumed sessions
• Session files are plain text JSON (for manual inspection/backup)

Configuration location: ~/.claude/sessions/