Session Import Problems

import { Aside } from ‘@astrojs/starlight/components’;

Ptah can pick up existing Claude Code conversations from ~/.claude/projects/ so you don’t lose history when you move to the desktop app.

How discovery works

On launch and on workspace open, Ptah scans ~/.claude/projects/ for folders whose name encodes a workspace path. Each folder contains a *.jsonl transcript per session. Matches are grouped under the “Import” section of the chat sidebar.

Common problems

Symptom: “No sessions found” even though ~/.claude/projects/ contains folders. Likely cause: The workspace path in Ptah doesn’t match the path Claude Code used. Fix: Open the workspace from the same absolute path (case and trailing slash matter on some systems). If you moved the project, copy or rename the matching folder inside ~/.claude/projects/.

Symptom: Sessions appear but show as empty. Likely cause: The .jsonl transcript is corrupted or was truncated mid-write. Fix: Open the file in a text editor — each line must be a complete JSON object. Remove broken trailing lines and retry. Ptah will skip lines that don’t parse rather than failing the whole session.

Symptom: Import succeeds but attached files are missing. Likely cause: File references in the transcript use absolute paths that no longer resolve on this machine. Fix: This is expected when importing from another machine. The conversation text is preserved; reattach files manually if you need them.

Symptom: Windows shows “path too long” errors on import. Likely cause: Deep session folders exceed the 260-character MAX_PATH limit. Fix: Enable long paths in Windows (Group Policy → Enable Win32 long paths) and restart Ptah. Alternatively, move ~/.claude/projects/ closer to the drive root.

Where the files live

OS	Path
Windows	`C:\Users\<you>\.claude\projects\`
macOS	`/Users/<you>/.claude/projects/`
Linux	`/home/<you>/.claude/projects/`

Ptah never modifies files under ~/.claude/projects/ — it only reads them. Safe to back up or move.