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Older Codex Chats in VS Code Disappear After 20-Chat Limit #6410

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Older Codex Chats in VS Code Disappear After 20-Chat Limit#6410
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bugSomething isn't workingextensionIssues related to the VS Code extension

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@AL-Cybision
AL-Cybision
opened on Nov 9, 2025

What version of the VS Code extension are you using?

0.4.38

What subscription do you have?

Plus

Which IDE are you using?

VS Code

What platform is your computer?

Linux

What issue are you seeing?

I have more than 20 chats with the Codex extension in VS Code, but once I exceed 20 chats, the older ones disappear, and I can’t search for or access them.
Later Detail Explanation below | Credit: @rockmandash

"Just want to share another perspective as someone who uses Codex pretty heavily.
For a lot of developers, each task is basically part of an ongoing workflow — debugging, multi-file refactors, or long feature work. When the history rolls over after 20 items, it becomes pretty hard to:

reopen older prompts that still matter
look back at explanations or steps that were generated earlier
search through older sessions when trying to trace how an issue evolved
The data is technically still in .codex/sessions, but digging through the raw files isn’t really a practical day-to-day solution.

Even increasing the limit a bit (like 50–100), or making it configurable, would help a lot of people who work on longer tasks or use Codex throughout the whole day.

If performance was the reason for the cap, things like lazy-loading or a simple “load more” button might already be enough to keep the UI responsive while still giving access to older tasks.

Just wanted to highlight this because the 20-task limit ends up being a noticeable friction point for anyone doing more than quick one-off prompts. Codex has been awesome so far, and having more flexible history access would make it even smoother to use daily.

Thanks for taking a look!"

What steps can reproduce the bug?

What is the expected behavior?

Additional information

Activity

  1. AL-Cybision
    added
    extensionIssues related to the VS Code extension
    on Nov 9, 2025
  2. github-actions
    added
    bugSomething isn't working
    contextIssues related to context management (including compaction)
    on Nov 9, 2025

  3. github-actions commented on Nov 9, 2025

    @github-actions
    github-actionsbot
    on Nov 9, 2025 – with GitHub Actions
    Contributor

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

    Powered by Codex Action

  4. etraut-openai
    removed
    contextIssues related to context management (including compaction)
    on Nov 9, 2025

  5. etraut-openai commented on Nov 9, 2025

    @etraut-openai
    etraut-openai
    on Nov 9, 2025
    Contributor

    Yes, the extension limits the number of displayed tasks in the task history to 20 currently. They are still present (you can find them in .codex/sessions), but the UI currently shows only the last 20.

    @gpeal, was this done for performance reasons? What do you think about increasing this limit?

  6. AL-Cybision commented on Nov 9, 2025

    @AL-Cybision
    AL-Cybision
    on Nov 9, 2025
    Author

    Is there any proper way to configure to show all the chats or search through any past chat ? , beacuse accessing through .codex/sessions is i think a rough way.

  7. etraut-openai commented on Nov 9, 2025

    @etraut-openai
    etraut-openai
    on Nov 9, 2025
    Contributor

    Currently, the extension hard codes the limit at 20. The Codex CLI does not have such a limit, so you can access your older conversations using the CLI.

  8. milisp commented on Nov 9, 2025

    @milisp
    milisp
    on Nov 9, 2025

    You can use https://github.com/codexia-team/codexia to show all of the history based on project.

  9. AL-Cybision commented on Nov 10, 2025

    @AL-Cybision
    AL-Cybision
    on Nov 10, 2025
    Author

    I hope vscode extension will also cater this issue so its easy to access past 20 chats.

  10. milisp commented on Nov 10, 2025

    @milisp
    milisp
    on Nov 10, 2025

    I think they use the time to do more important things, so that I'll continue improving Codexia.

  11. fdterr commented on Nov 12, 2025

    @fdterr
    fdterr
    on Nov 12, 2025

    You can use https://github.com/codexia-team/codexia to show all of the history based on project.

    This doesn't work for me. I can see the list of chats, but they don't open when clicked

  12. milisp commented on Nov 12, 2025

    @milisp
    milisp
    on Nov 12, 2025

    @fdterr What's your platform? Codex version?

  13. rockmandash commented on Nov 17, 2025

    @rockmandash
    rockmandash
    on Nov 17, 2025

    Hi @etraut-openai , thanks for the clarification about the 20-task limit.

    Just want to share another perspective as someone who uses Codex pretty heavily.
    For a lot of developers, each task is basically part of an ongoing workflow — debugging, multi-file refactors, or long feature work. When the history rolls over after 20 items, it becomes pretty hard to:

    • reopen older prompts that still matter
    • look back at explanations or steps that were generated earlier
    • search through older sessions when trying to trace how an issue evolved

    The data is technically still in .codex/sessions, but digging through the raw files isn’t really a practical day-to-day solution.

    Even increasing the limit a bit (like 50–100), or making it configurable, would help a lot of people who work on longer tasks or use Codex throughout the whole day.

    If performance was the reason for the cap, things like lazy-loading or a simple “load more” button might already be enough to keep the UI responsive while still giving access to older tasks.

    Just wanted to highlight this because the 20-task limit ends up being a noticeable friction point for anyone doing more than quick one-off prompts. Codex has been awesome so far, and having more flexible history access would make it even smoother to use daily.

    Thanks for taking a look!

  14. AL-Cybision commented on Nov 17, 2025

    @AL-Cybision
    AL-Cybision
    on Nov 17, 2025
    Author

    Hi @etraut-openai , thanks for the clarification about the 20-task limit.

    Just want to share another perspective as someone who uses Codex pretty heavily. For a lot of developers, each task is basically part of an ongoing workflow — debugging, multi-file refactors, or long feature work. When the history rolls over after 20 items, it becomes pretty hard to:

    • reopen older prompts that still matter
    • look back at explanations or steps that were generated earlier
    • search through older sessions when trying to trace how an issue evolved

    The data is technically still in .codex/sessions, but digging through the raw files isn’t really a practical day-to-day solution.

    Even increasing the limit a bit (like 50–100), or making it configurable, would help a lot of people who work on longer tasks or use Codex throughout the whole day.

    If performance was the reason for the cap, things like lazy-loading or a simple “load more” button might already be enough to keep the UI responsive while still giving access to older tasks.

    Just wanted to highlight this because the 20-task limit ends up being a noticeable friction point for anyone doing more than quick one-off prompts. Codex has been awesome so far, and having more flexible history access would make it even smoother to use daily.

    Thanks for taking a look!

    @rockmandash , totally ! , this was even what i faced and point i wanted to highlight @etraut-openai . Thanks!.

  15. etraut-openai commented on Nov 17, 2025

    @etraut-openai
    etraut-openai
    on Nov 17, 2025
    Contributor

    @rockmandash, that's well articulated. Thanks for sharing.

  16. shayne-snap commented on Dec 30, 2025

    @shayne-snap
    shayne-snap
    on Dec 30, 2025

    @fdterr @AL-Cybision you can give WayLog a try. It's an opensource VS Code extension. History save automatically in .waylog/history folder, but you can search and save what you want.

  17. lechuhuuha commented on Jan 5, 2026

    @lechuhuuha
    lechuhuuha
    on Jan 5, 2026

    Hi, this feature is really needed, there is some chat which is pure information that i need to read again. Scroll through the session files is so hard to see.

    Would be a lovely to see more then 20 active chats

    Thanks codex team for the great product

  18. MargaretThomas commented on Jan 23, 2026

    @MargaretThomas
    MargaretThomas
    on Jan 23, 2026

    Version 0.4.62 includes an update to the chat limit. I have 26 chats in total and I can see them all.
    Thank you to those who did the update.

  19. etraut-openai
    closed this as completedon Jan 23, 2026

  20. iqdoctor commented on Mar 23, 2026

    @iqdoctor
    iqdoctor
    on Mar 23, 2026

    You can ask Codex to patch the Codex plugin as described in #15368. It worked surprisingly well for me. Just give Codex the link.

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