Previous chats disappearing when closing cursor

Bug Reports
1

Dear Cursor community,

I am struggling with an issue with my past chats. I am not sure if it is due to the last update or moving to a new machine (I did them both simultaneously), yet my chat history is no longer there. Each time I restart Cursor, the history is gone. Also, I do not see the ‘More’ tab either, and once again I am not sure if it is on purpose due to the last update or if its just me. I already re-installed it several times but nothing improved.

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I am quite lost as I am not even sure where the past chats are apparently saved. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Bests,
Rodrigo

1 Like
2

Hi @Rodrigo_RB!

Thank you for reporting this issue.

In terms of the chat history, are you opening the same workspace (project) each time? Cursor chat history is workspace-based, meaning the history is different per workspace. If you are opening the same project, could you please provide a screen recording of the reproduction steps? That would be very helpful!

Also, with regards to the ‘More’ tab, with our latest update, we’ve decided to move all of its contents into the Cursor Settings, which you can open by ctrl/cmd+shift+J or ctrl/cmd+p then “Cursor: Open settings”. All of the previous ‘More’ contents have been moved to the ‘Beta’ tab.

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Let me know if you have any other questions, I’ll be here to help.

1 Like
3

Dear shaoruu,

I suppose that it was a workspace issue as the history is back!

Bests,
Rodrigo

1 Like
4

That’s awesome to hear! Glad to be helpful :))

5 
 ~/eon-features  tree                                                                                    
.
├── eon-features.code-workspace
└── ml-feature-set
    ├── README.md
    ├── __pycache__

If I change the name of the directory ~/eon-features to ~/dev as follows:

 ~/dev  tree                                                                                    
.
├── eon-features.code-workspace
└── ml-feature-set
    ├── README.md
    ├── __pycache__

all the history in the “All Chats” be gone!

But if I change the directory name back, the history will all come back.

Is there a way to retain my history while allowing me to change the top level directory name?

6

I was able to replicate this issue, although it only retained chat history from the past few hours, after I recreated my virtual environment. @shaoruu will chat history disappear if the virtual env is recreated? Thanks!

7

I kept restarting Cursor due a Pylance problem, but always had the same workspace open. Some items from the chat history were lost, but older ones are still there. I had been using for 10+ hours Cursor since yesterday, yet I only see 3 chats in the “All chats” history without any filter. Notice how the last 2 chats are not there.

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8

Hi @dandv, the red sections you highlighted belong to the same chat in Cursor.

9

I had a long standing history in a workspace without any opened files, is there a way to get that history back?

1 Like
11

I’m experiencing the same issue. Just quit Cursor and rebooted my computer, re-opened the same workspace (no changes to directory names or anything) and the Chat History is gone.

12

Sorry to hear you’re having this issue with chat history disappearing after restarting Cursor

When you restart Cursor or your computer, you should normally still see your chat history when reopening the same workspace, but there are some known cases where history can disappear:

  1. Low disk space during updates
  2. Changing workspace/directory names (as Terry mentioned)
  3. Sometimes after recreating virtual environments

For now, the best way to preserve important conversations is to manually save them elsewhere. We don’t currently have a built-in backup feature for chat history, but many users get the Composer to make notes as it works into markdown files.

There are also some community projects to allow you to export conversation history from within Cursor.

13

Yeah I’m sure it was low disk space :slightly_frowning_face:

14

@danperks I’ve got the same problem, there was a moment of low disk space, but REALITY IS THE CHATS ARE ALL STILL THERE in their folder(s).

Using the extension CursorChat I’m able to access all of them, yet Cursor is unable to: how to fix this?

The chats are all there, so it’s obviously a BUG of Cursor that’s somehow possible to fix as the data are all there.

15

I’m sad to report that my Cursor chat history is also gone. Definitely in the same workspace. Please fix!

16

I have the same issue, the “Past chats” is showing my previous chats, but clicking on any of them is just loading for a few seconds and not doing anything…
That’s very frustrating as I was actively working of a few different things a didn’t have time to save very important results and findings..

17

i have exactly same issue, i cant afford to lose my work progress as i have gone far. please i need help

18

I just can’t believe they’re saying “well consider your chats as non permanent thing”…actually the chats ARE the essence of what Cursor is. Without the past chats, Cursor has no value.

A hard drive “without much space” loosing old chats is a serious bug, and not very difficult to fix creating backups and making sure data is safe.

Devs need to address this ASAP.

19

I found the problem, so what you will have to do is when you have a chat open you press the 3 dots that are at the left side of the x button in the chat to (close the chat) then you press “Chat settings” then it is located under “Default new chat mode” it is called “Auto refresh chats” you need to turn that off. Then it should work just fine :smiley:

20

I lost mine today when my Mac shutdown due to low battery. Suddenly I had to sign into Cursor as though it was the first time. I can see the chat history headings but the chat history itself won’t open. Help!!

21

Hey, could it be that you’ve run out of disk space? Just a thought.