Browse-CopilotChats

Browse, search, export, and recover VS Code Copilot chat history — including sessions orphaned when a project folder was renamed or moved.

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On launch, the script scans all workspaces and displays an interactive menu:

  Scanning VS Code workspace storage...
  Found 96 chat sessions across 28 workspaces.

  +==============================================================+
  |          VS Code Copilot Chat Browser                       |
  +==============================================================+

  [1] ! (unknown)  (10 chats, 4821KB)
  [2]   Helpdesk-AI-Assistant  (11 chats, 12380KB)
  [3]   it-eval-kit  (5 chats, 1203KB)
  [4] ! Fix-BitLockerRDV  (3 chats, 1876KB)
  [5]   WinRE-Fix-Package  (9 chats, 894KB)
  [6]   Enable-WindowsHello  (2 chats, 4KB)
  [7] ! Enable-WindowsHello  (10 chats, 11247KB)
  [8]   Fix-WindowsFonts  (1 chats, 1KB)
  [9] ! (unknown)  (6 chats, 987KB)
  [10]   printer-address-book-converter  (2 chats, 9341KB)

  ... and 18 more workspaces

  [A] All chats (flat list sorted by date)
  [E] Export all to Markdown
  [Q] Quit

  Select:

(sanitized — ! marks orphaned workspaces whose folders no longer exist on disk)

flowchart TD
    A([Run script]) --> B{Mode}
    B -- "-Export flag" --> EXP[Export all sessions to .md file]
    B -- Interactive --> WS["Workspace list  ·  ! = orphaned folder"]
    WS -- select workspace --> SL[Session list]
    WS -- "A — all sessions" --> SL
    SL --> SD[Session detail]
    SD --> SAVE[S — Save to .md]
    SD --> COPY[C — Copy to clipboard]
    SD --> EXT[X — Extract all sessions]
    SD --> MIG["M — Migrate history  (orphaned only)"]

    classDef success fill:#2d6a2d,color:#fff,stroke:#1a3d1a
    classDef warning fill:#7a5500,color:#fff,stroke:#4d3600
    class EXP,SAVE,COPY,EXT success
    class MIG warning

Loading

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✨ Features

• Interactive browser — lists every Copilot chat session across all workspaces, rendered inline with syntax-highlighted code blocks
• Orphan detection — flags workspaces whose folders no longer exist on disk, so nothing stays lost
• Export all — dump every session to a single dated Markdown file in one command
• Extract — export individual sessions from any workspace (active or orphaned) as readable .md files
• Migrate — reconnect orphaned chat history to a renamed/moved project folder; opens VS Code automatically if the new workspace hasn't been initialised yet
• No admin rights required — operates entirely within %APPDATA%\Code\User\workspaceStorage

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📋 Requirements

• Windows 10 / 11
• PowerShell 5.1 or later (built-in)
• VS Code with the GitHub Copilot Chat extension

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🚀 Usage

Browse interactively

Double-click Browse-CopilotChats.bat or run from a terminal:

.\Browse-CopilotChats.ps1

Navigate with number keys. From any chat detail view:

Key	Action
S	Save session to a .md file
C	Copy full session to clipboard
X	Extract all sessions from that workspace
M	Migrate orphaned chat history to a new folder (orphaned workspaces only)
B	Back

Export everything to one file

.\Browse-CopilotChats.ps1 -Export
.\Browse-CopilotChats.ps1 -Export -ExportPath "$env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\all-chats.md"

Recover orphaned workspace chats (extract)

.\Migrate-WorkspaceChats.ps1 -OldFolder "$env:USERPROFILE\Projects\ProjectName" -ExtractOnly
.\Migrate-WorkspaceChats.ps1 -OldHash "a1b2c3d4e5f6a1b2c3d4e5f6a1b2c3d4" -ExtractOnly -ExtractPath "$env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\RecoveredChats"

Exports each session as an individual .md file. Automatically adds the output folder to .gitignore if it's inside a Git repo.

Migrate chats to a renamed/moved folder

.\Migrate-WorkspaceChats.ps1 -OldFolder "$env:USERPROFILE\Projects\ProjectName" -NewFolder "$env:USERPROFILE\Projects\ProjectRenamed"

If VS Code hasn't been opened with the new folder yet, the script opens it automatically, waits for the workspace storage to initialise, then copies the chat data across.

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⚙️ Parameters

Browse-CopilotChats.ps1

Parameter	Type	Description
-Export	Switch	Non-interactive mode — exports all sessions to a single Markdown file
-ExportPath	String	Custom output path. Defaults to ~\Desktop\CopilotChats_<date>.md

Migrate-WorkspaceChats.ps1

Parameter	Type	Description
-OldFolder	String	Original project folder path (before rename/move). Either this or -OldHash required
-OldHash	String	Workspace storage hash (32-char hex). Shown in Browse-CopilotChats when viewing orphaned workspaces
-NewFolder	String	Destination folder to migrate chat history into. Required unless -ExtractOnly
-ExtractOnly	Switch	Export sessions as Markdown files without touching workspace storage
-ExtractPath	String	Destination for extracted files. Defaults to <NewFolder>\RecoveredChats\ or Desktop\RecoveredChats_<date>\
-CloseAfterInit	Switch	Close the VS Code window opened for hash initialisation

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🔧 How It Works

VS Code identifies each workspace by hashing its folder URI and using the hash as a storage directory name under %APPDATA%\Code\User\workspaceStorage\. Copilot chat sessions are stored as .jsonl files inside that directory. When a folder is renamed or moved, the hash changes and the old storage directory — along with all its chat history — becomes invisible to VS Code. This script finds those directories, reads the JSONL session files directly, and either extracts them as Markdown or copies them into the new workspace's storage directory.

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🔀 Fork It, Extend It, Build On It

VS Code still has no built-in way to browse, recover, or migrate Copilot chat history. This tool fills that gap with plain PowerShell — no extension, no build step, no install.

The natural next step is a proper VS Code extension: a sidebar panel to browse sessions, one-click migration when a workspace is renamed, maybe even a "recover orphaned chats" prompt on startup. If you feel like building that, go for it — this repo is the reference implementation and the JSONL data model is all here for you to work with.

If you build on this, a shoutout or link back to the original repo is appreciated — not required, just good karma.

Original repo: https://github.com/5a9awneh/Browse-CopilotChats

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📄 License

MIT — see LICENSE.