How to delete Continue session history, and what you lose

one file per session, plus a list beside them that the history view reads, so delete both

Continue writes each session to its own JSON file, which makes deleting one conversation nearly as simple as deleting one file. Nearly, because the history view does not read those files to build its list: it reads sessions.json, a list that sits beside them. Remove a file and forget the list, and the session stays listed.

Where the sessions are

${CONTINUE_GLOBAL_DIR:-~/.continue}/sessions/
  <sessionId>.json   one session: its title, workspace and messages
  sessions.json      the list: id, title, workspace and creation date of each

CONTINUE_GLOBAL_DIR is Continue's own override. The VS Code and JetBrains extensions and the cn CLI all use this directory.

How to delete one session

The simplest way is Continue's own history view. Deleting a session there removes its file and its entry in sessions.json (HistoryManager.delete).

By hand, close the editor first, then do both halves yourself:

cd "${CONTINUE_GLOBAL_DIR:-$HOME/.continue}/sessions"
rm <sessionId>.json
jq 'map(select(.sessionId != "<sessionId>"))' sessions.json > sessions.json.new && mv sessions.json.new sessions.json

sessions.json holds each session's title, so it is also where to find the id of the one you want gone.

Two things go wrong if only the file goes. The history view keeps showing the session, because it only reads the list, and opening it shows an empty chat titled "New Session", because loading a missing file falls back to a blank one. Deleting that entry from the history view then fails, because Continue's delete checks for the file first and stops before it updates the list. At that point, editing sessions.json is the only way to remove the entry.

How to delete all of it

rm -r "${CONTINUE_GLOBAL_DIR:-$HOME/.continue}/sessions"

This removes every session and the list together, which is what Continue's own clear-all does. Continue creates the directory and an empty list again the next time it needs them. Everything else in ~/.continue (config, skills, MCP servers) is left alone.

What you lose

A session is the record of what Continue tried, what worked and why. Once its file is gone, Continue can no longer reopen it or fork it with cn --fork, and there is no archive on disk to recover it from, unless you keep a separate backup.

Keeping it searchable instead

deja reads Continue's session files, alongside the other agents' histories, into one local index:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vshulcz/deja-vu/main/install.sh | sh
deja "Continue session about the flaky test"

Indexing and search stay local, credentials are stripped, and deja forget removes a session from the index when you do want it gone. A session whose file you deleted stays under the Deleted tab of the screen bare deja opens, and R writes its conversation back so cn --fork can pick it up again.

Where every agent keeps its history · Memory for Continue · The Continue format

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