Use --continue to Pick Up Your Last Conversation Where You Left Off
You closed the terminal, stepped away, and now you need to pick up exactly where you left off. Instead of starting fresh and re-explaining everything, just resume.
claude --continue
Claude reloads the entire previous conversation — files you discussed, decisions you made, code you changed — and picks up as if you never left. The short form works too:
claude -c
If you want to resume and immediately give a follow-up instruction, pass both flags:
claude -c -p "now write tests for the auth changes we just made"
This is especially powerful after context compaction or when you ran out of time mid-task. Claude doesn't just remember the last message — it reloads the full conversation thread, including tool results and file edits.
A few things to know:
--continuealways resumes the most recent conversation in the current directory.- If you need to resume a specific older session, use
--resumeinstead — it shows you a list to pick from. - The resumed session shares the same context window, so if you were near the limit before, you'll still be near it.
- Works great with
-pfor scripting: close a session, then continue it from a cron job or shell script.
The best Claude Code sessions don't end when you close the terminal — they pause.
via Claude Code
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When typing feels slow — describing a complex bug, explaining architecture, or thinking through a problem out loud — press Option+V to switch to voice input. Speak naturally and Claude Code transcribes your words into a prompt, so you can describe what you need at the speed of thought.
When Claude is heading down the wrong path — editing the wrong file, writing code you don't want, or giving a long explanation you don't need — press Escape to stop it immediately. You keep everything it did up to that point and can redirect with a new prompt.
Closed a session and realized you weren't done? Pass --continue (or -c) when launching Claude Code to pick up exactly where you left off — same context, same files, same conversation history — without re-explaining what you were working on.