This most likely happened because the workspace storage database (state.vscdb) was cleared or corrupted during the performance tuning. Along with other data, Cursor stores the session list (which conversations appear in the sidebar) inside SQLite files called state.vscdb (one per workspace), and unfortunately, there’s no built-in way to rebuild that list once it’s gone.
These files live under the Cursor user data directory:
- macOS:
~/Library/Application Support/Cursor/User/workspaceStorage/<workspace-id>/state.vscdb - Windows:
%APPDATA%\Cursor\User\workspaceStorage\<workspace-id>\state.vscdb - Linux:
~/.config/Cursor/User/workspaceStorage/<workspace-id>/state.vscdb
Cursor does maintain a state.vscdb.backup alongside each database, but if space was being cleared, that’s likely gone too.
The good news is the agent transcripts folder has already been found. Those are the raw conversation logs and they’re independent of the session list. Your user might find it useful to point the Cursor at that folder and ask to summarize each transcript, search for specific conversations, or answer any other questions about what was discussed. Not quite the same as having the sidebar back, but the content itself won’t be lost.