Chat history disappeared after relocating project folder

[victor5]

Describe the Bug

I was trying to activate my MCP server in Cursor and spent a lot of time troubleshooting why it would always show “red” whenever I toggled it “on”. It turned out to be due to my project folder had a parent folder with a space in it’s name.

So I moved the project folder to a different location in my C: drive that does not have any directories with spaces in their names. But after doing this and re-opening the folder within Cursor, all the chat history disappeared.

However, when I go into my %APPDATA%\Cursor\ folder I can see all the files are still there. How can I “re-activate” Cursor with the past chat histories?

Steps to Reproduce

Create a project folder with a parent folder that has spaces in the folder name. Open this folder within Cursor and chat with it for a bit.

Close the folder in Cursor first. Then close Cursor. Then move the project folder to a different location that does not have any parent folders having spaces in their names. Open Cursor. Then open the project folder that was moved. The chat history should be gone–as if you never chatted before.

Expected Behavior

When moving project folders (keeping everything fully intact), it shouldn’t affect the chat history that has taken place for the project. Especially when it seems the chat history data is still there in the %APPDATA%\Cursor\ directory. Why does moving the project folder make Cursor forget the existing chat histories?

Operating System

Windows 10/11

Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)

Version: 1.4.2 (user setup)
VSCode Version: 1.99.3
Commit: 07aa3b4519da4feab4761c58da3eeedd253a1670
Date: 2025-08-06T19:23:39.081Z
Electron: 34.5.1
Chromium: 132.0.6834.210
Node.js: 20.19.0
V8: 13.2.152.41-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.19045

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

[deanrie]

Hey, if you rename or move your project, the link to the chat breaks. In your case, you can try reverting to the previous project name and exporting your chat history. You can either save each chat individually or use this extension to export all chats at once.

SpecStory - Visual Studio Marketplace

[victor5]

Hi, i did try that. I copied the project folder back to the original location, and then re-opened it in Cursor. But the chat history was still empty, it did not “re-attach” the previous chat history.

Are you positive the chat history does “come back” ? Maybe i did something wrong, i will try again..

[victor5]

Okay just tried re-opening the “old project” using the Recent projects link (with the project folder put back to the previous location), and it still didn’t show the previous chat history:

Is there any way to force the chat history to show? Because when i go to the %APPDATA%\Cursor\ folder i see a lot of data and i’m guessing the chat history data is there and not deleted?

[deanrie]

It seems that the project name or its location might have been different. You can also try opening the chat database and look for the project name and its location there. You can find the chat file here:

%APPDATA%\Cursor\User\workspaceStorage