macS app lost "Archived" threads permanently when trying to "Unarchive"

Open 💬 3 comments Opened Feb 18, 2026 by coldpointblue

💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (github-actions[bot], contributor) responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.

What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?

Version 26.217.1959 (669)

What subscription do you have?

Personal

What platform is your computer?

Darwin 25.3.0 arm64 arm

What issue are you seeing?

macOS app lost "Archived" threads permanently when trying to "Unarchive", gone from UI, in no project anymore, because folder was moved while Codex not running, when I came in and chose to "Unarchive" content in that conversation from the Settings button bottom left in the app "Settings:Archived Threads" menu item in the menu, pressing the 'Unarchive' button removed the thread from the UI there but clicking go there, simply disappeared the notice and in the normal threads UI in the home screen there was no project for that, nor warning, no indication what happened to archive of threads.
It is no longer in the Archived threads UI, no longer in the home UI, so gone from use.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Archive thread.
Quit Codex.
Move folder or duplicate it, delete it then rename the duplicate with same name.
Launch Codex.
Settings button "Settings:Archived threads" item. You see Archived threads in UI to the right.
Press "Unarchive" button from thread from that file. Thread disappears. Notice on top disappears after that.
Go home with "Back to app" top left.
You don't see the project (it was not there to begin with, there was no warning that Archive is gone.
Archive has no project, not in UI.

What is the expected behavior?

Correct test:
would be to warn that the folder is gone, ask to find again or at least see a notice somewhere that project is not found and KEEP THE ARCHIVED THREAD IN THE UI. Since the folder is renamed or gone, Codex cannot find it. Don't disappear the archive from UI.

Additional information

There should be some warning in the app about folder not found. Archive thread should remain in UI instead of disappearing.

View original on GitHub ↗

3 Comments

github-actions[bot] contributor · 6 months ago

Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.

#11019
#11907
#10917
#10522
#10967

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miraclebakelaser contributor · 6 months ago

I think I'm getting a similar issue where archiving projects in worktrees causes the session to get lost, but I cannot reproduce it yet.

I figured out a stopgap way to recover your thread, perhaps it will work for you:

Ask codex to search the ~/.codex/sessions and ~/.codex/archived_sessions directories for the jsonl file containing your lost session. It's helpful if you have the session id, a snippet of code, or a commit hash that's unique to that session. Once you find the path to the file, open it up. It'll look something like this:

{"timestamp":"2026-01-01T00:00:00.000Z","type":"session_meta","payload":{"id":"00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000","timestamp":"2099-01-01T00:00:00.000Z","cwd":"/former_directory","originator":"Codex Desktop","cli_version":"0.104.0", ..

Change the value of cwd in the messages to the current directory of your project:

{"timestamp":"2026-01-01T00:00:00.000Z","type":"session_meta","payload":{"id":"00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000","timestamp":"2099-01-01T00:00:00.000Z","cwd":"/current_directory","originator":"Codex Desktop","cli_version":"0.104.0", ..

Codex App will discover and re-associate the conversation with your project. This worked for me. There may be some wonkiness when resuming the conversation because of the transplant. It also will not recover uncommitted changes.

jeannen · 4 months ago

Same issue. Archived should archive, not completely delete a convo...