How to sync messages of Claude Code extension in VS Code and Claude Code app?

A developer released a free, open-source PowerShell script that syncs Claude Code chats started in VS Code to the Claude Code desktop app by writing missing session wrapper files, enabling users to carry conversations between both apps without editing chat data.

Make a Claude Code chat you started in VS Code show up in the Claude Code desktop app — so you can carry one conversation back and forth between both apps. Windows · one PowerShell script · no install · never edits your chats · MIT licensed Full explanations are below — but if you just want it done, this is the whole thing. STEP 1 Download the script green "Code" button → Download ZIP → Extract . STEP 2 In VS Code: Terminal → New Terminal. Paste ONE line, swap in your folder, press Enter: powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "‹PATH TO THE .ps1›" -ProjectPath "‹YOUR VS CODE PROJECT FOLDER›" -Apply STEP 3 Fully quit the desktop app tray icon → Quit and reopen it. Done — your VS Code chats from that folder now appear in the desktop app's sidebar. 👉 Confused by ‹PATH TO THE .ps1› vs ‹YOUR PROJECT FOLDER› ? Read the 3-folders section — it's the 1 thing people trip on. Understand it 5-min read : 📖 The one idea behind everything idea — notebook + index card ❓ The WH questions wh — who / what / why / when / where / how 🔒 Is it safe? safe — yes, and exactly why Do it copy-paste : 📥 Install — get the script onto your PC install 🧩 IMPORTANT: don't mix up these 3 folders folders — read this first 🚀 How to use it — copy-paste recipes recipes — restart the desktop app⚠️ The step everyone forgets 🆘 Red error? The two common fixes errors Use it: 🔁 Carry one chat between both apps ping-pong pingpong 🗑️ How to undo undo 🧭 Bonus: the folder → "drawer" naming drawer ·⚠️ Honest limitations 📜 License license Imagine every Claude Code chat is a notebook , and there's a library index card that points to it. THE NOTEBOOK = your actual chat every message you and Claude wrote THE INDEX CARD = a tiny note that says "a notebook exists, here's its name and where it is" - The VS Code extension finds notebooks by looking on the shelf the folder on your disk . - The desktop app is lazier — it only reads index cards . No card = it can't see the notebook, even though the notebook is right there. When you start a chat in the desktop app , it writes the index card for you. ✅ When you start a chat in VS Code , no card gets written. ❌ → the desktop app is blind to it. This tool writes the missing index card. That's the whole thing. One card per chat. YOUR VS-CODE CHAT notebook ✔ your messages — already on disk, we never touch it index card ✘ MISSING ──run this tool──► index card ✔ ──► desktop app sees it Anyone who uses Claude Code in more than one place — the VS Code extension and the desktop app — and is annoyed that chats started in VS Code never appear in the desktop app's sidebar. It creates a small "index card" file Claude Code calls it a session wrapper for chats that don't have one. With the card in place, the desktop app lists the chat and can open it. It adds tiny pointer files. Nothing else. Both apps and the terminal CLI share the exact same chat file on disk. But the desktop app builds its sidebar only from index cards, and only the desktop app writes those cards — VS Code never does. So VS-Code-born chats are invisible to the desktop app until someone writes the card. This tool writes it. Whenever you started a chat in VS Code and now want it in the desktop app too. Run it as often as you like — it skips chats that already have a card , so re-running is always safe. THE NOTEBOOK your chat — we only READ it, never change it : C:\Users\<you \.claude\projects\<folder-as-dashes \<session-id .jsonl THE INDEX CARD what this tool WRITES : C:\Users\<you \AppData\Roaming\Claude\claude-code-sessions\<guid \<guid \local <session-id .json For each VS-Code-born chat in a folder, the tool: 1. Opens the chat file and reads ONLY its first ~50 lines a read-only peek 2. Figures out two things: • which folder the chat belongs to • a friendly title the chat's first message , with the date in front e.g. " Jun 13 hey help me find the claude's sesins..." 3. Writes a tiny index card whose pointer "cliSessionId" aims at that chat file 4. Drops the card next to the desktop app's other cards That's it. It reads your chats peek only and writes new little card files. ✘ It NEVER edits, moves, or deletes your actual chat files .jsonl ✘ It NEVER overwrites a card that already exists it skips those ✘ It NEVER deletes anything — it only ADDS card files ✔ It is DRY-RUN by default — it writes NOTHING unless you add -Apply ✔ It is trivially reversible — delete the card file it made, and the listing is gone your chat stays perfectly safe, because the card was never the chat You need just ONE file : register vscode session in desktop.ps1 . There is nothing to compile or install — you save this one file and run it. Pick either way to get it. 1. Open https://github.com/budhasantosh010/claude-code-session-bridge 2. Click the green "< Code" button → "Download ZIP" 3. Find claude-code-session-bridge-main.zip in your Downloads folder 4. Right-click it → "Extract All…" → choose a PERMANENT home, e.g. C:\Users\<you \Tools 5. You now have the script here: C:\Users\<you \Tools\claude-code-session-bridge-main\register vscode session in desktop.ps1 cd C:\Users\<you \Tools git clone https://github.com/budhasantosh010/claude-code-session-bridge.git Result: C:\Users\<you \Tools\claude-code-session-bridge\register vscode session in desktop.ps1 📌 Keep it somewhere permanent you'll remember a Tools\ folder is perfect .Don't leave it in Downloads— too easy to delete by accident. 1. In File Explorer, find register vscode session in desktop.ps1 2. Hold SHIFT, right-click it → "Copy as path" 3. The full path is now on your clipboard, e.g.: "C:\Users\Alex\Tools\claude-code-session-bridge\register vscode session in desktop.ps1" Almost everyone trips on this at first — including the person who built this tool. There are three completely different folders in play, and they are NOT the same thing: ① THE SCRIPT the tool ← a .ps1 file. Just a helper program. Lives ANYWHERE. C:\Users\Alex\Tools\claude-code-session-bridge\register vscode session in desktop.ps1 ② YOUR PROJECT FOLDER ← where YOUR code/work lives. The folder you open in VS Code. C:\Users\Alex\Documents\my-website ③ CLAUDE'S SESSIONS FOLDER ← Claude's OWN private storage. You NEVER point at this. C:\Users\Alex\.claude\projects\... 👉 Folder ② — your project folder the one you open in VS Code . 🚫 NOT folder ③ .claude\projects\... . Why? The -ProjectPath part is asking "which project's chats do you want?" — and you name a project by where its code lives its human name, like ...\my-website . The script then quietly translates that into folder ③ for you. You never type folder ③ yourself. YOU type: -ProjectPath "C:\Users\Alex\Documents\my-website" ← folder ② your code SCRIPT figures: → look inside C:\Users\Alex\.claude\projects\c--Users-...-my-website\ ← folder ③ it does this itself — not your job No. Here's the key idea: The .ps1 file isNOT part of Claude.It's a small helper program. It has nothing to do with Claude's internal machinery, so it doesnotbelong in .claude . .claude\ = Claude's house. Claude's own stuff sessions, settings, memory . ── you don't store your own tools inside someone else's house ── the .ps1 = YOUR screwdriver. A tool. It can sit in ANY drawer you like — Desktop, a Tools\ folder, anywhere. It works exactly the same. The script's location doesn't matter at all. What matters is that your command points at it with the -File "..." part: -File "C:\Users\Alex\Tools\claude-code-session-bridge\register vscode session in desktop.ps1" └─────────── "hey PowerShell, run THIS tool — it's right here" ───────────┘ Move the .ps1 to C:\Tools\ ? Then just change that to -File "C:\Tools\register vscode session in desktop.ps1" and it still runs fine. RUN this tool ① ── to bookmark the chats of this project ② ── into the desktop app. -File "...ps1" -ProjectPath "...your code folder" Folder ③ .claude = Claude's private storage. The tool reads it FOR you. You never name it. ① SCRIPT PATH = where you saved register vscode session in desktop.ps1 copied just above ② PROJECT PATH = the folder you open in VS Code for that chat To copy the PROJECT PATH: in VS Code, right-click the top folder in the Explorer sidebar → "Copy Path" . Or in File Explorer, Shift+right-click the folder → "Copy as path" . 1. Open PowerShell: in VS Code click Terminal → New Terminal or press the Windows key, type "PowerShell", press Enter 2. Paste a recipe below — with YOUR two paths filled in 3. Press Enter 💡 Golden habit:run itwithout -Apply first — that's apreviewand writes nothing. Happy with what it lists? Add -Apply and run again to actually write the cards. 👇 Every recipe below uses this ONE concrete example. Just swap in your own two paths. Example SCRIPT PATH : C:\Users\Alex\Tools\claude-code-session-bridge\register vscode session in desktop.ps1 Example PROJECT PATH: C:\Users\Alex\Documents\my-website Plain English: "Look at my-website's chats and add a card for any that doesn't have one yet." powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "C:\Users\Alex\Tools\claude-code-session-bridge\register vscode session in desktop.ps1" -ProjectPath "C:\Users\Alex\Documents\my-website" -Apply Plain English: "Show me what you WOULD add, but don't touch anything yet." powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "C:\Users\Alex\Tools\claude-code-session-bridge\register vscode session in desktop.ps1" -ProjectPath "C:\Users\Alex\Documents\my-website" Plain English: "I only want this single chat in the desktop app, not all of them." Step 1 — find the chat's id: 1. Open File Explorer and go to: C:\Users\<you \.claude\projects\ 2. Open the "drawer" for your project. Its name is your PROJECT PATH with every space and symbol turned into a dash. So: C:\Users\Alex\Documents\my-website → c--Users-Alex-Documents-my-website 3. Inside, each chat is a file named <session-id .jsonl . The filename IS the id: 41c938f1-e81e-4d13-ad39-bde9636a51c0.jsonl └──────────────── this is the id ───────────────┘ Step 2 — run it paste the id after -SessionId : powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "C:\Users\Alex\Tools\claude-code-session-bridge\register vscode session in desktop.ps1" -SessionId 41c938f1-e81e-4d13-ad39-bde9636a51c0 -Apply Plain English: "Sweep all my projects at once." Note: no -ProjectPath here — -AllProjects takes its place. powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "C:\Users\Alex\Tools\claude-code-session-bridge\register vscode session in desktop.ps1" -AllProjects -Apply powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "‹SCRIPT PATH›" -ProjectPath "‹PROJECT PATH›" -Apply └─ paste path ① └─ paste path ② After running with -Apply, fully QUIT and RE-OPEN the desktop app. The sidebar reads index cards only when it starts up — new cards won't appear until you restart. Quit properly: right-click the Claude icon in the Windows tray, bottom-right near the clock → Quit . Just closing the window may not be enough. "... cannot be loaded because running scripts is disabled ..." → You forgot the -ExecutionPolicy Bypass part. Copy the WHOLE recipe line; it's already in there. "No cabinet drawer for: C:\...\your-folder" → That PROJECT PATH has no Claude Code chats yet, OR the path is slightly wrong. Fix: make sure you copied the EXACT folder you open in VS Code Explorer → right-click top folder → "Copy Path" . Run Recipe B preview first to check before using -Apply. WROTE 41c938f1 Jun 19 read the project log... ← a new card was written WOULD 9f089261 Jun 13 hey help me find... ← preview only you left off -Apply Result: 1 new sticky-note s , 4 already registered skipped . └ added this run └ already had cards, left untouched | Flag | Meaning | |---|---| none | Dry run — lists what it would do, writes nothing. | -Apply | Actually write the card file s . | -ProjectPath "<path " | The folder you opened in VS Code default: current folder . | -SessionId <id | Do just one chat, by its id. | -AllProjects | Every project folder under ~/.claude/projects , not just one. | Here's the part that surprises people: there is nothing to "sync." Your messages already live in one shared notebook . No copying, no uploading. The only trick is each app re-reads the notebook when you OPEN the chat — so "syncing" just means open the chat in the other app. DESKTOP ──you type, Claude replies──► the shared notebook grows │ │ ① STOP let the reply finish ▼ VS CODE ──open the SAME folder → /resume → pick the chat──► it re-reads the notebook → your desktop messages are right there │ │ ② type, Claude replies → notebook grows again, then STOP ▼ DESKTOP ──re-open the chat from the sidebar──► re-reads → your VS Code messages appear 🔴 THE ONE GOLDEN RULE Only ONE app "live" on a chat at a time. Finish your turn → STOP → switch → open/resume → continue. Never type in both at the same second both would scribble in the same notebook at once and could smear a line . When you return to an app, OPEN THE CHAT FRESH so it re-reads from disk — don't trust a tab you left sitting open; it may still show the old page. 1. Go to: C:\Users\<you \AppData\Roaming\Claude\claude-code-sessions\<guid \<guid \ 2. Find: local <that-session-id .json 3. Delete it. 4. Restart the desktop app → the chat is gone from the sidebar. index card . Your actual chat the notebook .jsonl is never touched and stays safe. Claude Code files each chat under a folder name made from the chat's working directory, where every character that isn't a letter or number becomes a dash - : C:\Users\Me\Music\my project │ every space / symbol → dash ▼ c--Users-Me-Music-my-project ← the "drawer" inside ~/.claude/projects\ That's why the exact folder matters: a parent folder, a subfolder, or a renamed folder becomes a different drawer — and therefore a different list of chats. Windows only it uses Windows paths + PowerShell . Pull requests for macOS/Linux desktop paths are very welcome. The title is a best guess from the chat's first message — rename it inside the app if you like.- The card stamps default settings model, effort, no MCP tools . When you open the chat, the notebook is the source of truth ; the card's settings are just defaults for the listing. - Tested against the Claude Code desktop app's card format as of mid-2026 . If the desktop app changes that format later, the script may need a small update. Community tool, not affiliated with Anthropic. MIT — see LICENSE /budhasantosh010/claude-code-session-bridge/blob/main/LICENSE . Use it, fork it, share it, ship it.