Show HN: Migrating from Claude Code CLI to Claude Desktop

A developer released claude-profiles, an open-source CLI and Raycast extension that create isolated Claude Desktop accounts and move Claude Code session history between them by rebuilding the per-profile session index. The tool, installable via pip, adds commands including profile, list, import, migrate, backup, optimize, undo and inspect, and writes a rollback copy plus a run manifest under $XDG_STATE_HOME/claude-profiles/runs/ before any writing operation. The CLI supports macOS and Linux, while the Raycast extension is macOS only, and both read the same profile registry.

Run several isolated Claude Desktop accounts side by side, and move Claude Code session history between them. Two parts: - claude-profiles , a CLI that creates profiles, launches them, and moves session history into them. macOS and Linux. - A Raycast extension that does the profile half from the Raycast launcher. macOS only. Both read the same profile registry. A new profile starts with an empty Claude Code session list even though every transcript is still on disk, because the list comes from a per-profile index and the transcripts live in one shared store. Most of this tool exists to build and move that index. Install the CLI: pip install -e . Create a profile and sign in to it: claude-profiles profile add "Personal" Signing in matters: it creates the <account /<org directory every migration writes into. Quit the profile afterwards — every writing command refuses a profile with a live Claude instance. Back up before moving anything: claude-profiles backup --all See which CLI sessions exist and which the profile already has: claude-profiles list --profile personal Import the five most recent, then check them in the app: claude-profiles import --to personal --limit 5 If anything looks wrong, reverse it: claude-profiles undo --last --to and --profile take a registered profile id, a profile name, or a path. | Command | What it does | |---|---| | profile add\|list\|open\|rm | create, launch and forget isolated profiles | | list | list Claude Code CLI sessions, marked by what an import would do | | import | generate index entries so CLI sessions appear in a profile | | migrate | copy the session index from one profile to another | | backup | snapshot profile session state, excluding runtime and credentials | | optimize | clear stale error state, connector caches and dead scratch paths | | undo | reverse any run that wrote something | | inspect | print the shape of an index entry or a transcript | claude-profiles <command --help carries the detail. Start with --dry-run on anything that writes. | Mark | Meaning | |---|---| | | already indexed in the target profile | | + | already there, absorbed into a later session as a prior CLI id | | - | no user content at all, always skipped | | ~ | only built-in slash commands, skipped by --exclude-rote-commands | | s | ran in a desktop scratch workspace, see --scratch-sessions | Every command that writes takes a rollback copy first and records what it did in a run manifest under $XDG STATE HOME/claude-profiles/runs/ . claude-profiles undo --list shows them; undo <run reverses one, whole or one record at a time with --only . import additionally: - never opens a source transcript for writing, and records a SHA-256 before and after each import, failing if the file moved - writes nothing into ~/.claude at all unless --remap is used, in which case the rewritten copy is published under a new session id and the original stays addressable - refuses to import a subagent sidechain as a session - verifies after writing that no working-directory field in a generated entry still names the template session's folder - resets every per-session permission grant, so approvals given to one session never ride along to another - Session storage https://github.com/calebbarzee/claude-profiles/blob/main/docs/session-storage.md — the two locations, project slugs, subagents, scratch workspaces, and how duplicates are detected - The session index https://github.com/calebbarzee/claude-profiles/blob/main/docs/session-index.md — field policy, permissions, and the working-directory rule - Linux https://github.com/calebbarzee/claude-profiles/blob/main/docs/linux.md — install, paths, and the running-window caveat - Verifying on Linux https://github.com/calebbarzee/claude-profiles/blob/main/docs/verify-on-linux.md — the container test python3 -m venv .venv && .venv/bin/pip install -e '. dev ' .venv/bin/pytest && .venv/bin/ruff check . && .venv/bin/mypy claude profiles The Raycast extension lives in raycast/ : cd raycast && npm install && npm run dev tools/ holds forensic scripts that document undocumented formats. Re-running one after a Claude Desktop update tells you whether its finding still holds. They are macOS-only. | Script | Establishes | |---|---| | trace-subagents.sh | the sidechain layout and the promptId join | | permission-audit.sh | where permission settings live, and their valid enums | | sample-brand-color.sh | the brand hex, sampled from an app icon | | make-icon.sh | rebuilds raycast/assets/icon.png from swap icon.svg | raycast/assets/icon.png is tinted D97757 , the most common opaque non-white pixel in Claude Desktop's own icon. Rebuilding it needs rsvg-convert brew install librsvg , or apt install librsvg2-bin . The source artwork is "swap" by Evan Shuster, from the Noun Project. Each profile is a fully separate Claude account. There is no shared memory, chat history, or context between them. This makes switching faster; it does not merge accounts. Claude Desktop checks whether its userData path is the default location. Any profile launched by this tool fails that check, which disables local pairing in that instance. Your default profile, launched normally, is unaffected. The index schema is undocumented and changes between app versions. Re-run the scripts in tools/ after an update before trusting a large migration. MIT. See LICENSE https://github.com/calebbarzee/claude-profiles/blob/main/LICENSE .