Use --resume to Browse and Reopen Any Past Conversation
You know --continue resumes your most recent session. But what if the session you need isn't the last one? Maybe you had a debugging session two days ago that's still relevant, or a refactor you paused to work on something else.
claude --resume
This shows a searchable list of your past conversations in the current project. Pick the one you want, and Claude reloads the full context — files discussed, decisions made, what was left unfinished.
You can also filter by passing a session ID directly:
# Resume a specific session by its ID
claude --resume abc123def
This is especially useful when you're juggling multiple workstreams:
# Monday: start a refactor
claude # session A: "refactor the auth module"
# Tuesday: bug comes in, start a new session
claude # session B: "fix the payment race condition"
# Wednesday: bug is fixed, go back to the refactor
claude --resume # pick session A from the list
Claude picks up right where you left off — it remembers the plan, the files it changed, and what it was about to do next. No re-explaining, no re-reading the codebase.
A few things to know:
- Sessions are scoped to the project directory — you only see conversations from the current repo
- Older sessions may have stale context if the codebase changed significantly since then
- The session list shows timestamps and a preview of the first message so you can identify the right one
- Combine with
/compactafter resuming if the old session was near its context limit
--continue is for "where was I?" and --resume is for "where was I on that other thing?"
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.