Add Up Arrow Navigation for Chat History

Ideas Feature Requests
1

As a user of Cursor’s chat interface, I would like to request a feature that many developers are familiar with from command-line interfaces: the ability to navigate through chat history using keyboard shortcuts.

Feature Description:

  • Press ↑ (Up Arrow) to access previous messages/prompts
  • Continue pressing ↑ to cycle through older prompts
  • Press ↓ (Down Arrow) to move forward through history
  • Optional: Add command history persistence between sessions

Benefits:

  1. Improved Efficiency

    • Quick access to previous prompts without scrolling
    • Faster iteration on similar prompts
    • Reduced need for copy/paste

  2. Familiar Interface

    • Matches behavior of command-line tools
    • Intuitive for developers
    • Consistent with industry standards

  3. Better User Experience

    • Less context switching
    • Easier to modify and rerun previous prompts
    • Reduces cognitive load during coding sessions

Use Cases:

  • Modifying and rerunning similar queries
  • Referencing previous prompts without scrolling
  • Iterating on code generation requests
  • Quick access to commonly used prompts

This feature would significantly improve the workflow when working with Cursor’s chat interface, especially during longer coding sessions where accessing previous prompts is common.

1 Like
2

Yes please! Especially with the lazy loading of long threads (“load previous”) it’s very tedious to read and navigate.

3

bump. I’m very interested in this as well.

There are times when I revert my chat and want to reuse a prompt, but it is no longer accessible. I’d love to be able to easily find/use my submitted chat prompt history. I suppose duplicating the chat before reverting is possible, but I think enabling the familiar workflow would be awesome and much appreciated (maybe just allow it as a setting that users can enable).

maybe call it @past prompts

4

NB! add message history navigation to Cursor native Agents chat

Claude Code extension has this - arrow up/down to cycle through prev messages
Cursor native chat doesnt have this

PRIORITY: just add it, same as extension
no mumbo jumbo, no settings, just arrow up/down keys
when input focused, ↑ = prev message, ↓ = next message
works like terminal history

pls add this feature