Recent projects sidebar order does not update when switching active workspace

Resolved 💬 8 comments Opened May 8, 2026 by DevDengChao Closed May 21, 2026

What happened

In the Codex Windows desktop app, the sidebar "Recent projects" grouping does not appear to reorder projects by recent activity after switching/opening a project.

Environment

  • OS: Windows
  • Codex desktop app package: Microsoft Store / WindowsApps
  • Appx package observed locally: OpenAI.Codex_26.506.2212.0_x64__2p2nqsd0c76g0
  • Repository target: openai/codex

Evidence from local inspection

The persisted global state has:

  • sidebar-organize-mode-v1: recent
  • active-workspace-roots: changes when switching the active project
  • project-order: remains in its previous order unless a separate add/remove/drop path updates it

A read-only inspection of the packaged app indicates:

  • The project grouping/sorting code orders sidebar project groups from persisted PROJECT_ORDER / project-order.
  • The main-process handler for electron-set-active-workspace-root updates ACTIVE_WORKSPACE_ROOTS and WORKSPACE_ROOT_OPTIONS, but does not update PROJECT_ORDER.
  • Some other paths do update PROJECT_ORDER, for example adding remote projects or certain workspace-root option flows, so the "recent project" order can become stale depending on how the user switches projects.

Expected behavior

When "Recent projects" is selected, switching/opening a local project should move that project to the top of the recent project list, or the project list should otherwise be derived from actual recent project activity.

Actual behavior

The active workspace changes, but the project list can remain ordered by stale project-order, so "Recent projects" appears not to work.

Possible fix

When handling electron-set-active-workspace-root, also update PROJECT_ORDER using the selected root, roughly:

projectOrder = [root, ...existingProjectOrder.filter((entry) => entry !== root)]

and notify any state listeners needed for the sidebar to refresh.

View original on GitHub ↗

8 Comments

PrzemyslawKlys · 2 months ago

There is also a regression in newest version where By Project and Recent project no longer order it differently/properly. It was working before.

<img width="426" height="372" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/8438e33a-eff8-43c1-aff0-1d766adf4c66" />

cantonalex · 2 months ago

Shouldn't recent projects, move all projects up that have had new threads in them? Mine doesn't do this is this intended behaviour?

PrzemyslawKlys · 2 months ago

it was working that way, now it doesn't. It was broken in latest releases. Hoping they fix it but as you can see not many people noticed ;)

cantonalex · 2 months ago

seemingly resolved

PrzemyslawKlys · 2 months ago

Yes it it resolved, although one thing that would be cool for this is when it's sorted by last updated it would also keep sorting even after all threads are removed.

cantonalex · 10 days ago

Somehow this is back with the new chatgpt and codex combo @DevDengChao

PrzemyslawKlys · 10 days ago

Yup it's back. No longer able to organize things properly

wk8 · 11 hours ago

Noticed the same