Resume a Claude Code Session With –continue and –resume

The terminal closed, the laptop rebooted, or you hit Ctrl+D one time too many, and the conversation you were 40 minutes into is gone from the screen. It is not gone from disk. Every session is written continuously to a transcript file, and 2 flags bring it back.

This post covers --continue and --resume, the session picker and its keys, naming sessions so you can find them, branching one to try something else, and the difference between /clear and /compact. The flags and behaviour are from the current docs, linked at the end.

–continue and –resume

cd C:\path\to\your\project

claude --continue            # or claude -c: reopen the most recent session in this folder
claude --resume              # or claude -r: open the session picker
claude --resume auth-fix     # resume the session named auth-fix directly
claude --resume <session-id> # resume by ID, from any folder on this machine

Sessions are tied to the folder you started them in, so run --continue from the same project directory. A resumed session restores the conversation, the model it was on, and the permission mode it ended in, with 2 exceptions: a session that ended in bypassPermissions comes back in the normal starting mode, and --fork-session drops a saved plan mode. What is not restored is anything you passed as a flag the first time, --mcp-config, --add-dir, --settings, so pass those again.

From inside a session, /resume does the same job without leaving: it opens the picker, or /resume <name> switches straight to that session and saves the one you were in.

The Session Picker

claude --resume with no argument, or /resume, lists the sessions for this project with the name or generated title, how long since the last activity, the git branch and the file size. The keys worth knowing:

• Up / Down or j / k to move, Enter to resume, 1 to 9 to jump to that row
• Space previews the conversation without opening it
• Type / or any letter to search; pasting a GitHub pull request URL finds the session that made it
• Ctrl+R renames the highlighted session
• Ctrl+A widens the list to every project on the machine, Ctrl+W to every worktree of this repo, Ctrl+B filters to the current branch
• Esc leaves the picker or the search

Picking a session from another project does not open it in place; Claude Code copies a cd and resume command to your clipboard for you to run there. Sessions started with claude -p are left out of the picker and out of --continue; you resume those by ID, and claude -p --continue does see them.

Name Your Sessions

An unnamed session gets a title generated from your first prompt, which is fine for yesterday and useless for last month. Name the ones you will come back to:

claude -n api-refactor          # name it at startup (--name)

# inside a session
/rename api-refactor            # name or rename the current one

# later, from the shell
claude --resume api-refactor

The name shows on the prompt bar and in the picker, and --resume by name resolves across the repo and its worktrees. If 2 sessions share a name, claude --resume <name> opens the picker pre-filtered to them. Accepting a plan in plan mode also titles the session from the plan, unless you named it already.

Branch to Try Something Else

A branch is a copy of the conversation so far that you switch into, leaving the original untouched. Use it when you want to try a second approach without losing the first:

/branch try-the-other-approach     # inside a session, name optional

claude --continue --fork-session   # from the shell: same thing for the last session

The original stays in the picker and you get back to it with /resume <name>. In-flight background commands keep running and report into the branch you moved to. The thing not to do is resume the same session in 2 terminals without forking: both write into one transcript and the messages interleave.

Branching is for a different direction. To undo edits inside one session, the rewind menu (Esc twice on an empty prompt, or /rewind) is the tool, and Rewind Claude Code Edits With Checkpoints covers it.

Clear Versus Compact

2 commands manage what is in the context window without leaving the session, and they are not the same:

• /clear starts a new, empty session. The old one is saved and sits in /resume. Pass a name, /clear release-prep, to name the session you are leaving.
• /compact replaces the history with a summary, in the same session, and takes optional instructions: /compact keep the list of files we changed.
• /context shows what is using the context right now, which tells you whether you need either.

Claude Code compacts on its own when the window fills. The project CLAUDE.md is re-read after a compaction, so put anything that must survive one in there rather than in the conversation; the CLAUDE.md post has the detail.

Where the Sessions Are

Transcripts are JSONL files under your profile, one per session, in a folder named after the project path with every non-alphanumeric character swapped for a hyphen:

Get-ChildItem "$env:USERPROFILE\.claude\projects" -Directory | Select-Object Name

# the sessions for one project, newest first
Get-ChildItem "$env:USERPROFILE\.claude\projects\C--Users-<you>-my-project" -Filter *.jsonl |
    Sort-Object LastWriteTime -Descending | Select-Object Name, LastWriteTime, @{n='MB';e={[math]::Round($_.Length/1MB,1)}}

The 30 day retention applies to all of them: a session you have not touched for 30 days is deleted, and with it --resume for that session. Claude Code Only Keeps 30 Days of Transcripts covers the cleanupPeriodDays setting that changes it. /export saves a readable copy of the current conversation if that is all you need.

Other Considerations

The “Resume this conversation?” dialog appears on Pro, Max and Ultra when a long session has sat for a while. The estimate it shows is how much of your 5-hour usage window the saved conversation alone would take on your next message. Start a new conversation if the next task does not need the old one.

--continue skips sessions that started with /loop, and from version 2.1.257 it will open a finished background session but not one still running; for that it tells you the ID to claude attach.

Delete a project’s sessions sooner with claude purge, which removes its transcripts and its entry in ~\.claude.json from this machine only.

Frequently Asked Questions

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Related

• Claude Code on Windows: The Complete Guide
• Install Claude Code on Windows, Native and in WSL
• Claude Code Only Keeps 30 Days of Transcripts
• Rewind Claude Code Edits With Checkpoints
• Plan Mode in Claude Code: Read First, Edit After
• CLAUDE.md: Project Memory for Claude Code
• Run Claude Code From a PowerShell Script With claude -p
• Claude Code docs: manage sessions (resume, name, branch, where transcripts are stored)
• Claude Code docs: CLI reference (–continue, –resume, –fork-session, –name)
• Claude Code docs: checkpointing and /rewind

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