Missing all AI Chats

Discussions
1

I have been using the Cursor environment for a few weeks (very helpful, thanks), and I just now decided to do a bit of source code reorganization on a Windows 11 machine. When I finished and opened Cursor, all my AI Chat History for all projects was gone :frowning:

Note that I did not delete anything, just reorganized local folders because things were getting confusing.

Any ideas?

2

for me usually ask the ai to make roadmap/tasklist and then paste to txt file. when doin the project give a checklist to the task has done. so when u lost the chatt u can just give the tasklist to ai and it’ll continue ur project

3

Hey, I think you changed your project’s name or something similar, and because of this, you lost all your chats since they’re linked to each specific project. Try reverting to the previous name, it might help.

4

Hi Dean,

Thanks for the response.

I did not explicitly make project names, but (was just starting out) simply opened folders of relevance. Wonder if that created a “default” name based on folder path?

Read/skimmed further - e.g.:
a) Export your chats from Cursor to Markdown https://github.com/somogyijanos/cursor-chat-export
b) Chat history folder - How To https://forum.cursor.com/t/chat-history-folder/7653
Sound like hash of something (maybe Workspace name, if such created/saved by user?).

In any case, regardless of whether I attempt to export past chats, will be much more careful moving forward! And if I learn something down the line worth sharing, will do so here.

PS Did try moving one project back to folder/path I thought it had come from (that occurred to me too :-). It appears that either my memory was incorrect re path, or that is insufficient to recover chat, or…

Appreciate your taking the time to respond.

David

5

I just tried to reproduce this, and it seems to work as expected. I created a folder, opened it in Cursor, entered a request in the chat, then closed Cursor, renamed the folder, opened Cursor again, and my chat conversation was gone. I closed Cursor again, reverted the folder name, opened it in Cursor, and my chat was back.

2 Likes
7

Ah, good idea enow — thanks!

8

Dean,

Thanks much for this.

Now if I can only:

  1. Remember my folder structure from before I cleaned things up. (Multiple little projects — iffy…)
  2. Figure out how to go backwards from existing hashes to their corresponding folder name/path from which they were created. (Just kidding — not about my desire for same, but about technical possibility of such :slight_smile:

Moving forward, I will be much more careful about all this!

Appreciatively,
David

9

Thanks, it’s very helpful. I have found my history yet.

1 Like
10

As soon as I change the full path of a project, I lose chat and composer history… that’s really inconvenient. How can I reorganize my workspace?

11

Hey, chats were never intended to be permanent places to store information on your projects, so I’d recommend trying to create some documentation files for your project that will store the information you have in your chat / composer sessions, so that if you need to start a new one, you can @ the right files and get the Composer up to speed super quickly!

12

I got my chat history back! Code was accidentally deleted, chat history disappeared. Devastating!
UNTIL - I searched on these forums and found I should look for .vscdb files on my computer which hold all the chat histories. Cursor told me to look in a hidden Library folder and actually opened the folder for me. - but they are not read-able. Cursor offered to help.
SOLUTION:
Cursor used 2 scripts to help search through the vscdb files and read them. I would tell Cursor what im looking for. key words, times, dates, and Cursor found everything one by one and compiled all the lost code and chat to a .md file. In conclusion ask Cursor to find it for you. I helped guide Cursor (EXAMPLE): " I remember asking to reduce the animation width by 50% and height by 50%." Cursor will find that point in the chat history and give all details and code involved.
Now let me make it easier - I asked Cursor to create a COPY and PASTE instruction message that you can give to your Cursor agent to help you recover lost chat history. here it is:
"Please help me recover lost chat history from Cursor’s workspace storage. This is a two-step process:

  1. First, create a Python script called export_chats.py that can search through SQLite databases in the workspace storage directory (on Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Cursor/User/workspaceStorage, each containing a state.vscdb file). The script should search through chat data for specific time periods and keywords related to the lost content.
  2. Then, create a Node.js script called clean_history.js that processes the exported chat history. This script should:
  • Filter conversations based on project-specific keywords
  • Clean up markdown formatting
  • Remove irrelevant content
  • Output cleaned history files for each team
    We’ll need to make multiple search passes with export_chats.py, refining the parameters each time to filter out noise and focus on relevant conversations. Once we have the raw chat data, we’ll use clean_history.js to organize and clean it. When we find matching content, help me reconstruct the code and implementation details from the chat fragments. Please guide me through this process step by step, starting with creating both scripts and then helping me search effectively by suggesting relevant search terms and filtering strategies based on what I’m trying to recover. Remember that chat history might contain code snippets, implementation discussions, and debugging sessions that can help piece together the lost work."
    Youre good to go -
    I hope you get your code back like I just got mine. EASY CODING !