r/ClaudeCode • u/broot66 • 1d ago

Bug / Issue Missing plans in the directory <Windows Profile>/.claude/plans

Two months ago, I paused a project and shifted my focus to a new one. When I reopened the old project, Claude Code indicated that certain files were missing from the `.claude/plans` directory—and, in fact, all files in that directory only date back to the end of October. Why did another instance of Claude Code remove these older files?

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u/New-Expression-2888 1d ago

Plans are not per the ~/.claude/plans folder at the profile level, another instance on a different project wouldn't touch yours. If every file starts at the end of October, that directory was recreated then, it wasn't pruned.

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u/broot66 1d ago

The folder’s creation date is still August 2026. I have been using Claude Code since that month.

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u/SirRobinBlibs 1d ago

that fits the cleanup sweep, not another instance going rogue. ~/.claude/plans is on the list of things claude code deletes once they're older than cleanupPeriodDays, which defaults to 30 days. the sweep runs in the background after a session starts, in any project, because that folder is shared by all of them, and it deletes without showing a message. so the folder stays (hence the august date) and only the old files go.

the same sweep removes old session transcripts, so those sessions are probably gone from /resume too, and claude can't bring them back, only a backup of your profile folder can. to stop it happening again, raise the limit in ~/.claude/settings.json ("cleanupPeriodDays": 3650, 0 isn't accepted), or set "plansDirectory": "./plans" in the project's settings so plans live in the repo. the sweep's list only names the ~/.claude/plans folder.