Where to find GitHub Copilot Chat History ?

[PixelJolly]

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Where can I find GitHub Copilot Chat History ?

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Hello.

I have been chatting with Copilot a couple of times today and I was wondering how to retrieve the chat (including suggested code snippets) from before but when I open the Threads dropdown I only see a "New Thread" selection.

When looking for it myself I only found answers related to MS Copilot or to where to find logs (which do not include code suggestions (and the format is not helpful anyway).
Unfortunately I am not able to provide any extra information about this issue and I can't find a solution.

Where can I find a copy of all my previous chats?
Thank you.

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[PixelJolly]

Thanks for your feedback.

Unfortunately I am not able to provide any extra information about this issue and I can't find a solution for it: this is why I am asking the community.

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[francisrohner]

I was wondering the same.

My workaround for the time being is using the "Chat: Export Chat" command in VSCode in conjunction with the GitHub Copilot Chat extension.
Not ideal, but if the goal is to retain the answers offline this kind of works.

https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/57190

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[AlexMalfr]

Still an issue.

[BigUncle]

Copilot answer:

GitHub Copilot does not store history for chat or agent mode interactions. Each suggestion is generated in real-time based on the current context of your code.

[PixelJolly]

Copilot answer:

GitHub Copilot does not store history for chat or agent mode interactions. Each suggestion is generated in real-time based on the current context of your code.

Mmmm weird, cause in Jetbrains Rider I can see the history of what I asked, in Copilot Chat 🤔

[futursimple]

How far back? In Copilot directly on the web at github.com, I only see a handful of my many previous chats. :(

[futursimple]

And now they've erased all my chats. Unsubscribed from Pro. This is unacceptable.

[Rundong-Li]

same issue here

[codon101]

So you can't even choose to save or archive it??

[aaradhy3i3]

man i need help as well cuz i tried to modifie my code and its all messed up now

[afilp]

Is there a history for the Inline Chat though?

If I close the dialog and then I want to give more prompts for the same prompt, I am lost.

[kfsone]

• writes detailed explanation of what I want copilot to do,
• copilot creates a bunch of files for the work,
• I accidentally click "done",
  -> all the files are empty and I'll use Roo next time instead.

[morisono]

https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-copilot-release/issues/3537

[Snowflyt]

GitHub Copilot Chat histories are stored per workspace—even if you didn’t create one manually, VS Code will generate one for you automatically.

Normally, you can transfer histories between workspaces (and machines) using the Chat: Export Chat… and Chat: Import Chat… commands. If you can’t restore your previous workspace, however, you can still retrieve the JSON history files directly from VS Code’s workspace root directory, workspaceStorage.

The workspaceStorage directory is located at:

• C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Code\User\workspaceStorage on Windows;
• /Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/Code/User/workspaceStorage on macOS.

Inside workspaceStorage, each subfolder—named by a hash—corresponds to a workspace (including those automatically created by VS Code). To identify which is which, open a folder and inspect its workspace.json: it lists the associated project path. Note that a single project can have multiple workspace entries. Within the correct workspace folder, look for a chatSessions directory, where your Copilot Chat histories are saved as JSON files. You can copy those files elsewhere and then use Chat: Import Chat… to load them into another workspace.

[CharliePc3]

Your answer is excellent! I've found the missing chat log's JSON file, and I successfully opened the conversation window after importing it in VS Code. However, the session doesn't appear in the "All Sessions" list. I tried deleting the JSON file and then import chat again, but the chat still doesn't appear in the sessions list. Have you encountered this problem?

[adityadeval]

Thanks a lot!!! You helped me recover a lot of my imp data.

Your answer should've been at the very top! I now understand how and where the chats are stored. There isn't a single webpage explaining this like you did.

[rbherwan]

Thank You so much. You saved lot of effort.

[derekantrican]

For anyone coming to this later, I came across this discussion because I set up a new computer and copied over my %appdata%\Code contents and hoped VS Code would automatically restore the Copilot chat sessions. Of course, it did not (even though all the repo paths were the same on the new computer). So I worked with Claude to create a script that will go through each session and "restore it" for you: https://gist.github.com/derekantrican/4754609f5a5e53aecf3454bf08de17ea (make sure you close VS Code before you run it)

[fuhufu]

In Linux, the path is Linux: ~/.config/Code/User/workspaceStorage/. See another discussion here: https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/152490#discussioncomment-13137536

[jakelevirne]

I wanted to bring all these chat histories directly into my workspace, in a human readable format (markdown), so I built an extension to autosave chat history into my project folder.

These markdowns are easy to version, search, and share. They can't be imported like the json files, but that's ok cause I can always # reference them from another chat.

[vinod-y]

Is there a similar tool for eclipse IDE ?

[kfsone]

The current history icon, especially in its context, looks like a revert icon - I never thought to click it to see my other/past chats and only discovered it due to lag in a remote desktop session...

Not that I know what would be better; I want to say something like a tube-map-style icon like the version control history icon. But, erh, that would probably have the same connotation in that context.

Maybe 3 overlapping speech bubbles?

[clicktodev]

There's also an issue where copilot chats aren't saved in a liveshare session

[obustosm]

Is there a way that we could retrieve old Copilot chats in VSCode, be available somehow into Github's Copilot site?

If it exists, i can't find it...

[mfa-normandy]

Intellij:
C:\Users<user>\AppData\Local\github-copilot\iu

VSCode:
https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/129888#discussioncomment-12917705

[paul-michalik]

To ti is completely beyond me, why there isn't a feature to store the chat history online, like there for the standard Microsoft Copilot.

[ridhamvandana-oss]

If you use SSMS with Copilot then check here
C:\Users<User>\AppData\Local\SSMSCopilot

[futursimple]

In Copilot web, I just have the last four chats, and the only way I can access ones previous to that is if I still have that tab open in my browser, or if I had sent the link for any of them to someone. This is ridiculous.

[AmriteshJangir]

At the moment, GitHub Copilot Chat does not provide a way to view or restore past chat history once a thread is closed or the editor session ends.

A few important points to clarify:

The “Threads” dropdown only shows the current active thread and the option to start a new one. It does not list previous conversations.
Copilot Chat conversations are session-based and are not persisted in a way that users can browse later.
There is no built-in chat history, archive, or export feature, and suggested code snippets are not saved automatically.
Copilot logs (telemetry/debug logs) exist, but they are not designed for users, are hard to interpret, and do not reliably include full code suggestions or conversation context.

What you can do instead
Manually copy important responses or code snippets into comments, notes, or documentation as you go.
If you’re using VS Code, keep the Copilot Chat panel open until you’re done, as closing it ends the session.
For reusable knowledge, consider asking Copilot to help you generate documentation or code comments that you can keep in your repo.

Bottom line
There is currently no way to retrieve or view previous GitHub Copilot Chat conversations. If chat history is important to your workflow, this is a known limitation and something many users have requested as a feature.

[freddyrios]

Another way you can lose the history:

• have a long strategy session, to plan what to do
• switch to agent mode to begin by creating a new repo -> after it creates the repo the chat resets and the history is lost :/

Well, except for those folders mentioned earlier from which I will try to pull it from.

[denys5dev]

To be honest, I switched from Cursor to VS Code with Copilot. My first problem was that I spent a lot of time generating and planning project history, then the agent generated the project. When I opened the project folder, VS Code restarted and all the history was lost.

As a result, I ended up wasting a lot of tokens and burned through 73% of my monthly limit. Now I have to spend more tokens again to redo the work. This is unacceptable because it feels like I’ve literally lost money, which is very frustrating.

[karllarssonusawest]

Exactly why I'm researching how to find old conversations. I even asked Copilot if the context would be lost if I opened the solution and it promised me it wouldn't. It lied.

[freddyrios]

For full VS the logs seem to be here instead: AppData\Local\Temp\VSGitHubCopilotLogs

[BarnabasSzabolcs]

Guys, any solution for MAC? I can't find PyCharm's github copilot plugin's data folder. I do miss text search in github copilot soooo much. :( And Linux and Windows solutions I could see in this thread.

[lslimpg]

I was able to retrieve my recent chat history by hitting Ctrl + Shift + P, then selecting Chat Agent Sessions: Open Agent Session.

Selecting this then shows a drop-down of recent titled chat sessions. Hope it works for anyone else reading this and be of use.

[Ultra-Tech-code]

This works. Thank you so much

[SavvasEricLinxie]

My workaround was to left-click my session and run Resume in Terminal

[rbherwan]

I am able to retrieve my chat by hitting Ctrl + Shift + P, then selecting Chat: Show Chats.
Then from drop down selected required session.

[levani]

I have the chatgpt Codex extension installed and I use both - "GitHub Copilot Chat" and "Codex" for different tasks. In session history I only see chats created from codex extension. I can't find sessions that I created from "GitHub Copilot Chat" extension itself anywhere.

[HelgeMuenchberg]

Just prompt for putting the conversation in a txt file at the end of the session and append data to it. So you can easily resume a conversation.