Prompt on startup to delete orphaned chat history when project folder is missing

Ideas Feature Requests
1

Feature request for product/service

Chat

Describe the request

Problem

Cursor stores Agent/Chat history locally (e.g. under workspaceStorage), keyed to a workspace path. When a project folder is deleted, moved, or cleaned up by an external tool (version-control workflow, publish pipeline, etc.), the chats become orphaned:

  • They no longer appear usefully in the UI for that project
  • They still consume disk space
  • There is no built-in way to delete only orphaned chats

Developer: Delete Old Chats… is age-based and deletes old chats from active projects too, so it is unsafe for users who keep long-running modules in test for weeks/months while other projects are published and their local folders are removed automatically.

Real-world workflow

I often work on several modules/projects in parallel. Some stay in test/adjust/publish for weeks or months. When a module is published, my version-control tooling automatically deletes the local project folder after migrating sources to trunk.

At that point I may not even know which folders were removed or when. If I run age-based cleanup, I risk deleting useful chat history from projects that are still on my machine and still in progress.

Proposed solution

On Cursor startup (or when scanning workspaces), detect workspace storage entries whose project path no longer exists on disk.

If orphans are found, show a dialog, for example:

Project folder not found
Chat history still exists for project “XPTO”, but the folder was not found at:
C:\path\xyz

Do you want to delete the associated chat history?
[Delete] [Keep] [Skip all] [Review list…]

Expected behavior

  • Ask per orphaned project (or show a list with checkboxes)
  • Default to Keep (non-destructive)
  • Optionally remember “always delete orphans” / “never ask” in settings
  • After delete, reclaim disk space (same cleanup path as manual delete + blob GC)
  • Do not auto-delete without confirmation

Why this matters

Today users either:

  1. Leak orphaned chat data forever, or
  2. Risk wiping useful history from active projects with age-based cleanup

A startup orphan prompt closes that gap cleanly.

Alternatives considered

  • Manual delete in History → only works while the folder still exists
  • Developer: Delete Old Chats… → not orphan-aware
  • Hand-deleting %APPDATA%\Cursor\User\workspaceStorage\<hash> → error-prone

Operating System (if it applies)

Windows 10/11

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