Add a real Delete Thread action in Codex Desktop for Windows

Resolved 💬 2 comments Opened Mar 7, 2026 by summer521521 Closed Mar 7, 2026

What variant of Codex are you using?

Codex Desktop App (Windows)

What feature would you like to see?

I would like Codex Desktop to support a real Delete thread action in the UI, separate from Archive.

Right now, if I want to permanently remove a thread, the only workaround I have found is to manually delete JSONL files under:

  • C:\Users\<user>\.codex\sessions
  • C:\Users\<user>\.codex\archived_sessions

This is difficult and confusing for several reasons:

  1. Session files are organized by time/date instead of workspace or project, so it is hard to identify which thread belongs to which project.
  2. In practice, I have to inspect the JSONL contents (for example, session_meta.cwd) just to figure out which thread I should delete.
  3. Even after manually deleting the JSONL file, the thread still remains visible in the app until Codex Desktop is restarted.
  4. The storage/index model is hard to understand:
  • session_index.jsonl does not appear to be a complete list of all session files on disk
  • related UI/global state is also stored elsewhere
  • so it is unclear what the source of truth is

Because of this, cleaning up old or temporary threads feels fragile and unsafe.

What I would like instead:

  • A Delete thread option directly in the thread menu
  • Immediate removal from the UI without requiring an app restart
  • Consistent cleanup of all related index/state entries
  • Ideally, thread/session storage should be easier to map back to workspace/project identity

Additional information

This matters because I often create temporary/testing threads and want to remove them cleanly.

Right now, manual deletion through .codex\sessions or .codex\archived_sessions feels like editing internal implementation details rather than using a supported workflow.

I am specifically using Codex Desktop on Windows.

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