Local Codex Desktop sessions disappear from sidebar after restart (Windows App)

[panadenbaer]

What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?

26.305.950.0

What subscription do you have?

Business

What platform is your computer?

Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.26200.0

What issue are you seeing?

Local Codex Desktop sessions are written to disk correctly but are not shown in the Codex Windows app after restarting the application.

The sessions remain present in the filesystem, but the sidebar only displays Cloud tasks.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. Start the Codex Windows app.
2. Create a new local session (Codex Desktop).
3. Confirm that the session appears in the sidebar.
4. Restart the Codex Windows app.
5. After restart, the local session is no longer visible in the sidebar.

What is the expected behavior?

Local Codex Desktop sessions should persist and appear in the sidebar after restarting the application.

Additional information

• Local sessions disappear from the sidebar after restart.
• Only Cloud tasks are displayed.
• Local session files still exist on disk.

Session files remain present in:
%USERPROFILE%.codex\sessions

Example:

rollout-2026-03-06T09-04-26-019cc22d-2cb7-7032-9762-64869a590f80.jsonl

The session metadata inside the file appears valid:
{
"type": "session_meta",
"originator": "Codex Desktop",
"source": "vscode"
}

Additional Notes

• The issue appears similar to previously reported desktop issues where the UI ignores local sessions and only displays cloud threads (MacOS, but already fixed)
• Sessions are not lost; they remain readable in the .codex/sessions directory.
• This behavior occurs specifically in the Codex Windows Desktop App after restart.

Possible Related Issues
#10547
#10640

[github-actions]

Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.

• Cannot create new local conversation (WSL) #11721
• VSCode extension: "no rollout found" error on every new conversation (ChatGPT Plus, Windows 10) #11997

Powered by Codex Action

[klinki]

Yeah this just happened to me, it got me a bit worried - luckily it seems data should be still in .codex directory, just the desktop app ignores them for some reason :(

Do you know if there is any workaround to get them back until they make an official fix?

[panadenbaer]

Hi, not really. My only workaround is to pin important chats. Then they will appear again after restart. David Klingenberg ***@***.***> schrieb am Mo., 16. März 2026, 11:44:

…

*klinki* left a comment (openai/codex#13713) <#13713 (comment)> Yeah this just happened to me, it got me a bit worried - luckily it seems data should be still in .codex directory, just the desktop app ignores them for some reason :( Do you know if there is any workaround to get them back until they make an official fix? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#13713 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AFZMV5BA3CCPTFW32IM4UA34Q7LHJAVCNFSM6AAAAACWJHDF52VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHM2DANRWG42DKNZWGE> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>