Explore the .claude directory

What's not shown

The explorer covers files you author and edit. A few related files live elsewhere:

~/.claude also holds data Claude Code writes as you work: transcripts, prompt history, file snapshots, caches, and logs. See application data below.

Choose the right file

Different kinds of customization live in different files. Use this table to find where a change belongs.

File reference

This table lists every file the explorer covers. Project-scope files live in your repo under .claude/ (or at the root for CLAUDE.md, .mcp.json, and .worktreeinclude). Global-scope files live in ~/.claude/ and apply across all projects.

Click a filename to open that node in the explorer above.

Troubleshoot configuration

If a setting, hook, or file isn't taking effect, see Debug your configuration for the inspection commands and a symptom-first lookup table.

Application data

Beyond the config you author, ~/.claude holds data Claude Code writes during sessions. These files are plaintext. Anything that passes through a tool lands in a transcript on disk: file contents, command output, pasted text.

Cleaned up automatically

Claude Code deletes the files in the paths below once they're older than cleanupPeriodDays, as long as it can safely determine the retention period. The default is 30 days and the minimum is 1; setting 0 fails with a validation error. The same age cutoff applies to automatic removal of orphaned worktrees.

Claude Code makes four exceptions to this sweep:

• sessions/: holds one small file per running session, used to detect concurrent sessions and crashes. It isn't part of the age-based sweep: Claude Code removes each file when its session exits and clears crash leftovers on the next launch.
• Auto memory: Claude Code excludes a project's auto memory directory, projects/<project>/memory/, from this sweep, and removes the directory itself only after it has been empty for the whole retention period. Before v2.1.228, the sweep treated folders inside the memory directory as session data and could delete old files beneath it.
• Bare mode: when you run claude -p with --bare, Claude Code doesn't run the sweep in that session.
• Paused sweep: if Claude Code can't safely determine the retention period, it pauses the retention cleanup sweep; the retention_sweep event lists each configuration that pauses it. When the cause is a settings file that can't be read or parsed, or settings errors with cleanupPeriodDays explicitly set, Claude Code also shows a warning in /status until you fix the settings errors. When managed settings provide cleanupPeriodDays, Claude Code runs the sweep at the managed value in either case.

Kept until you delete them

The retention cleanup sweep doesn't cover the following paths. Claude Code keeps them until you delete them, apart from the two caches whose rows say that logging out deletes them.

Other small cache and lock files appear depending on which features you use and are safe to delete.

Plaintext storage

Transcripts and history are not encrypted at rest. OS file permissions are the only protection. If a tool reads a .env file or a command prints a credential, that value is written to projects/<project>/<session>.jsonl. To reduce exposure:

• Lower cleanupPeriodDays to shorten how long transcripts are kept
• Set the CLAUDE_CODE_SKIP_PROMPT_HISTORY environment variable to skip writing transcripts and prompt history in any mode. In non-interactive mode, you can instead pass --no-session-persistence alongside -p, or set persistSession: false in the TypeScript Agent SDK; the Python SDK has no equivalent option.
• Use permission rules to deny reads of credential files

Clear local data

Run claude project purge to delete the state Claude Code holds for one project. It deletes:

• Transcripts and auto memory under projects/
• Per-session tasks/, debug/, and file-history/ entries
• Matching prompt lines in history.jsonl
• The project's entry in ~/.claude.json

The command prints the full deletion plan and asks for confirmation before removing anything.

The examples below use ~/work/my-repo as a placeholder. Replace it with the path to your project. If no state matches the path, the command prints an error and exits with status 1.

Preview the plan without deleting anything:

claude project purge ~/work/my-repo --dry-run

The plan lists each matching item and why it is included:

Purge plan for /home/user/work/my-repo:

  dir:    /home/user/.claude/projects/-home-user-work-my-repo
           project transcripts (.jsonl) and memory/
  config: projects["/home/user/work/my-repo"]
           project entry in ~/.claude.json (trust, history, MCP servers)
  filter: /home/user/.claude/history.jsonl
           12 prompt(s) typed in this project

shell-snapshots/ are not project-scoped and will not be touched
backups/ may still contain this project entry in old .claude.json snapshots (/home/user/.claude/backups); at most 5 are kept and they rotate out automatically
Dry run: 3 item(s) would be deleted.

Delete with a single confirmation prompt:

claude project purge ~/work/my-repo

The command prints the same plan, then asks Delete 3 item(s) for /home/user/work/my-repo? This cannot be undone. [y/N] and deletes only if you answer y.

Omit the path to pick a project from an interactive list.

Skip the confirmation prompt for use in scripts:

claude project purge ~/work/my-repo --yes

Pass --all instead of a path to purge state for every project at once, which deletes history.jsonl outright rather than filtering it. Pass -i to step through the deletion plan one item at a time.

The command leaves shell-snapshots/ and backups/ alone because those are not project-scoped, and warns about them in the plan output.

You can also delete any of the application-data paths above by hand. New sessions are unaffected. The table below shows what you lose for past sessions.

Don't delete ~/.claude.json, ~/.claude/settings.json, or ~/.claude/plugins/: those hold your auth, preferences, and installed plugins.

Related resources

• Manage Claude's memory: write and organize CLAUDE.md, rules, and auto memory
• Configure settings: set permissions, hooks, environment variables, and model defaults
• Create skills: build reusable prompts and workflows
• Configure subagents: define specialized agents with their own context