claude-backup

Claude Code deletes your sessions after 30 days.

Every debugging session. Every architecture decision. Every prompt you spent an hour crafting. Gone.

WhatsApp keeps your messages forever. Telegram keeps them forever. Discord keeps them forever. Claude Code — the tool you pay $20–200/mo for — gives you 30 days.

npx claude-backup

One command. Your sessions are safe. Auto-syncs daily.

What You're Losing

Claude Code stores everything in ~/.claude/ — your settings, custom agents, hooks, skills, and every conversation you've ever had. Sessions older than 30 days? Silently deleted.

Each session is:

• A debugging journal — the exact steps that fixed that impossible bug
• An architecture record — why you chose that pattern, with the AI's reasoning
• A prompt library — the carefully worded instructions that actually worked
• A learning log — mistakes, corrections, breakthroughs, all timestamped

You can't Google your own Claude sessions. Once they're gone, they're gone.

How It Works

npx claude-backup

Interactive setup:

1. Checks requirements (git, gzip, python3)
2. Creates a private GitHub repo (or local-only if you prefer)
3. Backs up your config and all sessions (gzipped)
4. Sets up automatic backups (configurable: daily, 6h, hourly)

That's it. Run it once, forget about it.

Get Your Sessions Back

Browse and restore any session from your backups:

# List all backed-up sessions
claude-backup restore --list

# Show the last 5 sessions
claude-backup restore --last 5

# Filter by date
claude-backup restore --date 2026-02-27

# Filter by project
claude-backup restore --project myproject

# Restore a specific session
claude-backup restore <uuid>

The session index is auto-generated on every sync and rebuilt from the *.jsonl.gz files — you never need to manage it manually.

What Gets Saved

Config profile — settings, CLAUDE.md, agents, hooks, skills, rules. Lightweight (< 100 KB), portable between machines.

Sessions archive — all chat history, compressed with gzip. Your entire conversation history, safe in a private repo.

| Item | Source | Notes | | --- | --- | --- | | Settings | settings.json | Plugins, preferences | | Local settings | settings.local.json | Permission overrides | | User instructions | CLAUDE.md | User-level system prompt | | Custom agents | agents/ | Agent definitions | | Custom hooks | hooks/ | Automation scripts | | Custom skills | skills/ | User-authored skills | | Custom rules | rules/ | Custom rules | | Session files | projects/**/*.jsonl | Chat history (gzipped) | | Session indexes | projects/**/sessions-index.json | Session metadata | | Command history | history.jsonl | CLI command history (gzipped) |

All source paths are relative to ~/.claude/.

Machine Migration

Your config took hours to perfect. Move it in seconds.

# Old machine
claude-backup export-config
# => ~/claude-config-2026-02-25.tar.gz (47 KB)

# Transfer via AirDrop, USB, email, etc.

# New machine
npx claude-backup import-config claude-config-2026-02-25.tar.gz

Plugins are not included in the export (they are re-downloaded on first launch). Only the plugin manifest in settings.json is backed up.

Backend Modes

Choose where your backups live:

# GitHub private repo (default if gh is installed)
npx claude-backup

# Local only — no remote, no GitHub needed
npx claude-backup --local

# Custom git remote
npx claude-backup --backend git
claude-backup backend set git --remote git@myserver:backups.git

Switch backends anytime — even after setup:

claude-backup backend set github   # switch to GitHub
claude-backup backend set local    # switch to local-only
claude-backup backend set git --remote <url>  # custom remote

Backups go to ~/.claude-backup/ as a local git repo. Everything works the same — sync, restore, peek, export/import.

Backup Schedule

Control how often backups run:

claude-backup schedule daily    # Every day at 3:00 AM (default)
claude-backup schedule 6h       # Every 6 hours
claude-backup schedule hourly   # Every hour
claude-backup schedule off      # Disable automatic backups

Restore Everything

Restore all sessions at once — useful for a fresh machine or disaster recovery:

claude-backup restore --all             # restore every session
claude-backup restore --all --force     # overwrite existing sessions

Claude Code Plugin

Let Claude manage backups for you — no npm install needed:

/plugin marketplace add tombelieber/claude-backup
/plugin install claude-backup@claude-backup

That's it. The plugin bundles the CLI — the agent runs it directly from the plugin cache. No global install, no npx, no PATH setup.

| Command | Description | | --- | --- | | claude-backup | Interactive first-time setup | | claude-backup sync | Backup config + sessions | | claude-backup sync --config-only | Backup config only (fast, < 1 sec) | | claude-backup sync --sessions-only | Backup sessions only | | claude-backup status | Show backup status | | claude-backup export-config | Export config as portable tarball | | claude-backup import-config <file> | Import config from tarball | | claude-backup import-config <file> --force | Import config, overwriting existing files | | claude-backup peek <uuid> | Preview a session's contents | | claude-backup restore --list | List all backed-up sessions | | claude-backup restore --last N | List last N sessions | | claude-backup restore --date YYYY-MM-DD | Filter by UTC date | | claude-backup restore --project NAME | Filter by project name | | claude-backup restore <uuid> | Restore a specific session | | claude-backup restore <uuid> --force | Overwrite existing session | | claude-backup restore --all | Restore all sessions at once | | claude-backup restore --all --force | Restore all, overwrite existing | | claude-backup backend set <mode> | Switch backend (github, git, local) | | claude-backup schedule <freq> | Set frequency (off, daily, 6h, hourly) | | claude-backup uninstall | Remove scheduler and optionally delete data | | claude-backup <any> --json | Structured JSON output (for scripts/agents) | | claude-backup init --local | Force local-only mode (no GitHub) | | claude-backup init --backend <mode> | Set backend during init |

• Credentials are never backed up. .credentials.json and .encryption_key are hardcoded exclusions.
• GitHub repo is private by default.
• export-config warns if any file appears to contain sensitive content (tokens, secrets, passwords).
• import-config does not overwrite existing credentials.

| Item | Why | | --- | --- | | .credentials.json | Auth tokens — security risk | | .encryption_key | Encryption key — security risk | | plugins/ | Re-downloadable from registry | | debug/, file-history/ | Transient logs and edit history | | cache/, .search_cache/, .tmp/, paste-cache/ | Caches, rebuilt automatically | | session-env/, shell-snapshots/ | Runtime state | | statsig/, telemetry/, usage-data/ | Analytics, not user data | | todos/, teams/, plans/, ide/ | Ephemeral per-session data |

~/.claude-backup/                         # Git repo -> private GitHub repo
├── manifest.json                         # Root manifest (aggregates all machines)
├── machines/
│   └── <machine-slug>/                   # Per-machine namespace
│       ├── manifest.json                 # Machine-specific metadata
│       ├── config/                       # Config profile
│       │   ├── settings.json
│       │   ├── settings.local.json
│       │   ├── CLAUDE.md
│       │   ├── agents/
│       │   ├── hooks/
│       │   ├── skills/
│       │   └── rules/
│       ├── session-index.json            # Auto-generated, gitignored
│       ├── projects/                     # Sessions (gzipped)
│       │   ├── -Users-foo-myproject/
│       │   │   ├── session-abc.jsonl.gz
│       │   │   └── sessions-index.json
│       │   └── ...
│       └── history.jsonl.gz             # Command history (gzipped)
└── ...                                   # Other machines

Sessions are namespaced by machine — backups from multiple devices stay organized and searchable. Existing v3.1 backups are auto-migrated on first sync.

| Location | Contents | | --- | --- | | ~/.claude-backup/ | Local compressed backups + git repo | | github.com/<you>/claude-backup-data | Remote private repo | | ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.claude-backup.plist | macOS scheduler |

• macOS (Linux coming soon)
• git
• gzip (built-in on macOS)
• python3 (built-in on macOS since Catalina)
• gh (GitHub CLI) — optional. Enables remote backup. Without it, backups are local-only.

claude-backup uninstall

Removes the daily scheduler and optionally deletes local backup data. Delete the GitHub repo separately:

gh repo delete claude-backup-data

Related

• claude-view — 10 Claude sessions running. What are they doing? npx claude-view

If claude-backup saves your sessions, consider giving it a star. It helps others discover this tool.

MIT