Urgent – Lost All Chat and Agent Mode History

Bug Reports
1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

After restarting my computer, all my chat and Agent Mode history was completely deleted from Cursor IDE.
This has happened several times in the past few months, but this time I’ve lost months of critical work and conversations.

This is extremely disappointing and frustrating — a professional tool should not randomly erase essential user data after a system restart.
Such major bugs must be tested and fixed before releasing any new version, especially when they affect user history and productivity.

Please take this issue seriously — the emotional stress and lost work time caused by these repeated problems are significant. I expect a fast and professional resolution.

Steps to Reproduce

Steps to Reproduce

Work in Cursor IDE using Chat and Agent Mode for an extended period (weeks or months).

Restart the computer.

Open Cursor again.

Observe that all chat history and Agent Mode conversations are missing — the entire project history is gone.

Expected Behavior

Cursor IDE should retain all Chat and Agent Mode history after restarting the system.
User data should be safely stored and automatically synced, not permanently erased by a simple restart.

Screenshots / Screen Recordings

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2.png1332×1178 12.7 KB

Operating System

Windows 10/11

Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)

Version: 1.7.38 (system setup)
VSCode Version: 1.99.3
Commit: fe5d1728063e86edeeda5bebd2c8e14bf4d0f960
Date: 2025-10-06T18:18:58.523Z
Electron: 34.5.8
Chromium: 132.0.6834.210
Node.js: 20.19.1
V8: 13.2.152.41-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.26100

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Yes - Cursor is unusable

6 Likes
2

Hi @user790, and welcome to the Cursor Forum. I’m sorry to hear that you lost your chat history.

Could you please share a bit more information about the circumstances when this occurred?

  • Did it happen immediately after a Cursor update?
  • Which window were you using last—the IDE or the Agent Window?
  • Are there any other details that could be related?

While we rigorously test Cursor across all platforms and use it ourselves, there are occasionally edge cases that require more information to reproduce and resolve the issue.

Since the problem occurs when your computer is restarted, there may be external factors such as something corrupting the chat history before it is fully written to your drive by Windows. This can happen if the OS does not save changes to the drive, or if applications like antivirus software block the file from being released and the write process from completing.

Nevertheless, please provide any additional details as requested above.

While we investigate the issue and work to improve stability, I recommend following best practices to prevent data loss:

  • Use external drives and online backups, making sure Cursor data folders (including chat history) are backed up so you can restore them if needed.
  • Use the SpecStory extension to automatically export chat history. This way, even if your chat history is lost, you’ll still be able to reference past chats in Agent.
  • Since chats are not synced to the cloud, regular backups are strongly recommended.
1 Like
3

Thank you for your response.
However, I must emphasize that this is not an edge case and not related to Windows or antivirus interference. The issue occurred immediately after a normal system restart, with no antivirus prompts, crashes, or interruptions.

To clarify your questions:

  • The data loss happened after a restart, not during or after an update.

  • I was last using the Agent Window before closing the app.

  • Cursor shut down normally — no crash, no warning. After reboot, all chat and Agent Mode history was gone.

I understand that you suggest local backups or extensions like SpecStory, but these are workarounds, not solutions.
As a paying customer, I expect the product to guarantee data persistence and not require manual export to avoid losing months of work.

This problem represents a critical failure of data handling and product reliability.
I request that the Cursor team:

  1. Escalate this to engineering as a data loss incident.

  2. Investigate whether my chat data can still be recovered from local storage or cache.

  3. Provide a transparent explanation of how Cursor stores history and why it can be permanently deleted by a simple restart.

I am fully willing to cooperate with your technical team and even allow remote access for diagnostics if needed.

If this issue is not resolved and my data is not restored, I will be forced to take all legal steps available to recover the damages caused by this loss of paid work.

This is not a casual bug — it’s a severe breach of trust for a professional paid product.

I expect a detailed and technical reply from your engineering team, not a generic recommendation to make backups.

4 Likes
4

Thank you for the update and clarification.

I have made the team aware of your issue and engineers are looking into it.

Questions and other possible causes I offered are from cases we have seen before.

Unfortunately we are not able remotely access users devices and are unable to remotely or retroactively restore data.

As mentioned i notified the team of your issue with appropriate importance.

5

Thank you for the follow-up.
I appreciate you notifying the engineering team, but I must emphasize that this situation remains completely unacceptable.

Losing all chat and Agent Mode history after a simple restart represents a critical data integrity failure in a paid product that should never rely solely on local unsynced files.

It is not acceptable to simply say that data cannot be restored “retroactively.”
As a paying customer, I expect Cursor to implement a recovery and backup mechanism, or at least provide a technical explanation of how user data can vanish entirely with no safeguard.

If this incident is left unresolved, I will have to take all legal and formal steps available to recover the damages caused by this data loss. This includes reporting the issue as a consumer rights and data-handling failure under EU digital service protection laws.

I’m still open to cooperating in any way possible with your engineering team — I can share logs, local directories, or any other diagnostic data that might help restore or analyze what happened.

Please do not close this case until a detailed technical explanation and mitigation plan have been provided.

6 Likes
6

This issue just happened again.

After your last reply, I continued working in Cursor for about two hours, rebuilding part of my lost chat and Agent Mode context — and now everything disappeared again.

This clearly proves that the problem is still active and critical, not an isolated case or a local corruption. The data loss occurs randomly even during normal usage, without system crashes or antivirus interference.

At this point, Cursor is unusable for any serious work — it cannot be trusted to retain chat history or project context even for a few hours.

I urgently request that this incident be escalated directly to the engineering and product reliability teams. This is not a minor bug; it’s a data integrity failure that affects paying users and causes repeated data loss.

I again expect a full technical explanation and a concrete fix plan.
If this is not resolved, I will have no choice but to pursue formal and legal action to recover the damages caused by these repeated failures.

Please confirm that this case is now being treated as a priority data loss incident and that it will remain open until resolved.

4 Likes
7

Our Engineering team investigated this issue and they found that it was caused by a rare condition related to the Agent Window feature, which is still in Beta.

For a small subset of users, there was an option to review the changes made by the Agent in an Agent Window, and when chosen, this inadvertently toggled the Agent Window feature on. By default, the Agent Window is enabled through the Cursor Settings > Beta > Agent Window toggle.

Unfortunately, because of this bug, chat history can’t be recovered. The good news is that a fix will be included in Cursor v1.8, which will make the feature more stable and prevent this from happening again. Until the release please disable the Agent Window.

We’re truly sorry for the frustration this may have caused and appreciate your understanding as we continue improving Cursor’s beta experience.

8

For those of us who have a backup, will 1.8 allow us to restore from our backup? I have TimeMachine backups that are lost after exiting no matter what I do or how far back I go on any version I downgrade to. Could this be as a result of a recent change to privacy mode or something related under Enterprise accounts? Even a fresh install → new chat → exit leads to no chat history being retained.

9

The cursor’s chat history is stored locally and is divided by workspaces path. In Windows, chat history is stored in %APPDATA%\Cursor\User\workspaceStorage

1 Like
10

@user770 TimeMachine allows you to restore the folder and files from history (if it was backed up externally, as local history is limited)

11

Thank you for the update and for confirming the root cause. I appreciate that the engineering team took the time to investigate it.

That said, this was not just a “beta glitch” — it resulted in the permanent loss of months of critical AI-assisted development work.
For paying users, data integrity should never depend on whether a feature is labeled “Beta” or not.

I’m glad to hear the issue will be fixed in v1.8, but I strongly suggest the team also implements:

  1. Automatic local or cloud backups of chat and Agent Mode history.

  2. A warning or confirmation prompt before enabling Beta features that may affect data persistence.

  3. A way to export or sync chats for those who rely on Cursor for long-term projects.

I understand that bugs happen, but this kind of data loss is extremely damaging for professional users.
I hope Cursor takes this as an opportunity to strengthen trust by improving data reliability and providing clearer safeguards going forward.

1 Like
12

Thank you @user790 for the detailed feedback and your great suggestions. We do not take it lightly, team is aware of the impact and we learn from this.

Export in Cursor is already available in Chat. As it is not automated I do suggest SpecStory extension which I use myself.

13

I know what TimeMachine does and how to use it. The restoration did not result in success. My question is will Cursor be providing an update that allows users who have these backups to restore their history?

Can you please answer the second part of my question as well: Could this be as a result of a recent change to privacy mode or something related under Enterprise accounts? Even a fresh install → new chat → exit leads to no chat history being retained.

1 Like
14

I also agree this is a massive issue Cursor should highly prioritize. Knowing this limitation with Cursor is one of the reasons why I never allow myself to have too many cursor recommendations pending at once. While having multiple recommendations at once is a MASSIVE advantage, the risk of a computer restart / cursor crash causing one to lose all code prior to ‘Accepting’ a change is way too large.

1 Like
15

@user770 checking with team about enterprise account for this.

16

@user770 enterprise has no setting to disable storing Chats. The issue may be the same as OP posted. If you close the Agent Window and use Chat Agent in IDE, does the history save?

17

It does not. Even after fully deleting both Cursor directories and starting from a default install. This behavior seems consistent with all of my downgrades from 1.7.39,a9c77ceae65b77ff772d6adfe05f24d8ebcb2794 as well which suggests something server-side may be getting enforced since in the past it was fine, but I am at a loss.

18

@condor is there any solution on how to get chat history saved after starting a chat then quitting and reopening Cursor on a fresh install where the only action taken is logging in (as an enterprise user) or can we confirm if this is a bug?

Do I need to be purging up any directories other than ~/.cursor and /Users/username/Library/Application Support/Cursor?

This behavior is also happening in a fresh Windows 11 VM on a host with Cursor never installed on it, again, with the only actions taken being:

  1. Log in
  2. Start cursor
  3. Start new chat
  4. Exit and reopen cursor
  5. Chat history gone/doesn’t appear

Both tests but especially the latter suggests something is happening on the remote side that is causing this state.

19

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

After updating Cursor, all conversation history disappeared from the UI, despite the data being intact in the database.

Composer/Chat History UI - macOS (Darwin 25.0.0)

Steps to Reproduce

  • Upgrade Cursor
  • Restart Cursor
  • Observe an empty history in the UI

Expected Behavior

Past conversations should show up in the UI

Operating System

MacOS

Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)

Version: 1.7.44
VSCode Version: 1.99.3
Commit: 9d178a4■■■89981b62546448bb32920a8219a5d0
Date: 2025-10-10T15:43:37.500Z
Electron: 34.5.8
Chromium: 132.0.6834.210
Node.js: 20.19.1
V8: 13.2.152.41-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 25.0.0

Additional Information

(COMPOSED BY THE AGENT)

Technical Investigation

I performed extensive database analysis and discovered the root cause:

Database Location: ~/Library/Application Support/Cursor/User/globalStorage/state.vscdb

The Problem: Storage Format Incompatibility

Old Conversations (Pre-Update):

  • Messages stored in fullConversationHeadersOnly field in the database
  • All 3,236 conversations with 51,497 messages are intact and readable
  • Successfully exported and verified multiple conversations

New Conversations (Post-Update):

  • fullConversationHeadersOnly: Empty array
  • Uses different storage mechanism
  • Works fine in UI

Issue: New Cursor version (1.7.44) doesn’t read the old fullConversationHeadersOnly format, causing all pre-update conversations to be invisible despite data being intact.

Database Evidence

SELECT key, 
  json_extract(value, '$.fullConversationHeadersOnly') as old_data
FROM cursorDiskKV 
WHERE key LIKE 'composerData:%';

Old conversations have extensive data, new version doesn’t read it.

What I Tried (All Failed)

:white_check_mark: Verified UI registries (lastOpenedBcIds, windowBcMapping, panel entries) - all correct
:white_check_mark: Attempted data migration between fields
:white_check_mark: Tried rebuilding conversation arrays
:white_check_mark: Multiple restarts, verified no archived conversations
:cross_mark: Nothing worked - fundamental format incompatibility

Impact

  • Severity: High - complete loss of UI access to history
  • Data Loss: None (data intact, manually extractable)
  • Workaround: Manual database exports only

Suggested Fix

Add backward compatibility layer:

if (data.conversation.length === 0 && 
    data.fullConversationHeadersOnly.length > 0) {
  // Auto-migrate old format on first access
  data.conversation = migrateFromHeaders(data.fullConversationHeadersOnly);
}

Similar Reports

Other users experiencing this after updates:

Available: Detailed database analysis, sample exports, can provide sanitized database samples if needed.

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

20

@condor anything for us here?