ChatVault

ChatVault is an open-source, MIT-licensed Windows desktop app by Sanaullah Rais that collects local AI coding chat histories into one window. It reads chat files from Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, OpenCode and Cline across every account that has been signed in on the PC. The latest release listed is v0.4.0.

What It Is

ChatVault is a local chat history manager for AI coding tools. The README explains that each tool shows only the chats of the currently signed-in account, so history seems to vanish after switching accounts or reinstalling, even though the files remain on disk. ChatVault finds those files and lists them in one window.

From there, users can read chats, search across all tools at once, back them up, and export them as Markdown, HTML, text or JSON.

Continuing Work Across Tools

ChatVault can generate a handoff file that carries the whole chat, so a different tool can pick up the work from where it stopped without losing context. The interface shows a chat's plan, tool steps, tables and code. Keyboard shortcuts include Ctrl+K to search chats and actions and Ctrl+F to find within an open chat.

Privacy and Local Operation

The README states that ChatVault only reads chat files, never uploads them, needs no account, and never touches sign-in files. Its only network request is to GitHub to check for new versions. Updates download in the background and prompt a restart.

Setup Path

It requires 64-bit Windows 10 or 11 and uses the WebView2 runtime that ships with Windows. Releases include a setup .exe, an .msi for Windows Installer or Group Policy deployment, and a portable .exe. The installers are about 3 to 4 MB, and the README notes they are not yet code signed, so Windows may show an unknown publisher warning. It can also be built from source with Node 20+, Rust and the Tauri prerequisites. The stack is Tauri 2, Rust, SQLite (FTS5), React 19, TypeScript and Tailwind CSS 4.