Provide Export/Backup/Restore functionality for Settings and Chat History

Feature request for product/service

– Other –

Describe the request

Background Issue

Currently, when Cursor encounters the following scenarios, users may be forced to clear all data to restore normal functionality:

  • Application instability or crashes
  • System data corruption
  • Hard drive failure
  • Need to reinstall system or migrate devices

This results in users losing:

  1. All custom settings (except Settings.json and KeyBinding.json)
  2. Bash command whitelist
  3. All chat history
  4. Other auto-generated Cursor configuration files

Feature Requirements

Please provide an official backup and restore tool with the following capabilities:

1. Export Functionality

  • Export all user configurations (including but not limited to Settings.json, KeyBinding.json, command whitelist, etc.)
  • Export chat history (can be encrypted)
  • Export extension configurations and workspace settings
  • Support periodic automatic backup (optional)

2. Import/Restore Functionality

  • One-click restore all configurations
  • Support selective restoration (e.g., restore only settings, not chat history)
  • Support cross-device migration

3. Data Security

  • Support encrypted export for sensitive data
  • Backup file integrity verification

4. Usage Scenarios

  • Command Palette: Cursor: Export All Settings & Chat History
  • Command Palette: Cursor: Import Settings & Chat History
  • Settings UI: Provide dedicated “Backup & Restore” section

Expected Benefits

  • Reduce risk of data loss due to system issues
  • Improve user trust and experience
  • Facilitate configuration synchronization across multiple devices
  • Reduce time cost caused by reconfiguration

Reference Implementation

Similar features can reference:

  • VS Code’s Settings Sync
  • JetBrains IDE’s Settings Repository
  • But need additional support for Cursor-specific chat history and command whitelist

Operating System (if it applies)

MacOS

Hey, thanks for the feature request.

Right now, Cursor supports exporting individual chats to Markdown (chat context menu > Export Chat): Export & Share | Cursor Docs

For migrating between devices, the community has created unofficial tools:

I get that an official tool with a full backup of all settings and history would be much more convenient, especially given the occasional data loss issues during updates. This is a known issue, and the team is working on improving data storage reliability.

I’ll share your request with the team. A detailed description of your use cases is really helpful for prioritizing features like this.

I’m actually quite curious why replacing the ~/Application Support/Cursor directory from my Time Machine backup doesn’t restore my chat history. I suspect it might be because you validate certain login credentials, which could render these backups unusable (that’s understandable). But I think the official team should either release a script—or at least let the AI generate one—to copy what needs to be backed up. Failing that, you could at least tell us what, besides that seemingly useless state.vscdb that gets backed up repeatedly, is actually worth backing up. My Time Machine backs up every hour—so if restoring from it doesn’t work, what tool can I even trust? Should I try restoring every single ~/Application Support/Cursor snapshot from my Time Machine? Actually, I already tried that, and the issue persists. You’re not a small team anymore—we’re all software developers here. Have someone work a little overtime and use your own AI IDE to write something practical for a change, instead of rolling out pointless updates all the time.

Sharing my cursor recovery toolkit that helps solve chat migration, recovery and backup issues. Hope these come out handy!