claude-session-manager-gtk 0.8.0

Native GTK4 GUI to manage and resume Claude Code sessions

Claude Session Manager

Native GTK4/libadwaita desktop app to manage Claude Code sessions.

📖 Documentation

Unofficial community tool. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Anthropic. It never modifies Claude Code's own data — all app state lives in its own config file.

Features:

• Sidebar lists every session found under ~/.claude/projects/, grouped by project (collapsible headers, with collapse-all/expand-all buttons next to the search box), with a Favorites section pinned on top — star a session to move it there. A search box filters by name, project, preview, or session id, and the list updates live as sessions are created or written to.
• Sessions can be given custom names (pencil icon). Names, favorites, and hidden sessions persist in ~/.config/claude-session-manager/state.json — Claude's own session files are never modified.
• Clicking a session opens a tab in the main area; each tab is an embedded VTE terminal running your $SHELL with claude --resume <session-id> typed into it, in the session's original project directory. When claude exits you drop to a shell prompt; the tab closes when the shell exits. Closing a tab asks Claude to exit cleanly (/exit) in the background first.
• In-terminal search with a find bar (Ctrl+Shift+G) over the tab's scrollback.
• Status dots in both the sidebar and on each open tab: green = open, blue = output arrived in a background tab. A waiting badge (amber ?) marks sessions where Claude's last message was a question awaiting your reply.
• Tabs can be renamed, given an emoji prefix, or have their session ID copied (right-click → Rename… / Set emoji… / Copy session ID); renaming a session's tab updates its name everywhere. A close-all button appears when more than one tab is open, and the sidebar toggles with the header button or F9. Shift+Enter inserts a newline in Claude's prompt.
• Right-click a session for the full action set: open, open in Ghostty (external window — Ghostty can't be embedded), fork (--fork-session), rename, favorite, details (messages/models/tokens, a peek at recent messages, and MCP servers/usage), copy session id, reveal transcript, hide, or move the transcript to trash.
• Desktop notifications when a background session goes quiet after producing output — click to jump to that tab (toggle in Preferences).
• Select mode (checkbox button in the sidebar header) for bulk actions: open, star, hide, or trash many sessions at once.
• New session (tab icon in the header) asks for a project folder and starts a fresh claude there.
• Quick switcher (Ctrl+Shift+K) jumps to any session by type-ahead; the New Session button remembers your last folder; the sidebar is resizable and its width is remembered.
• MCP servers browser (menu → MCP servers): a read-only view of every MCP server configured in ~/.claude.json, global and per-project.
• Preferences (menu → Preferences, or Ctrl+,): terminal font, scrollback, color scheme.
• A status footer shows session, project, transcript-size, and open-tab counts.

Keyboard shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+Shift+F	Focus search
Ctrl+Shift+T	New session
Ctrl+Shift+N	New window
Ctrl+Shift+W	Close current tab
Ctrl+PgUp / Ctrl+PgDn	Previous / next tab
Ctrl+Shift+C / Ctrl+Shift+V	Copy / paste in terminal
Ctrl+Shift+G	Find in terminal
Ctrl+Shift+K	Quick switcher (jump to any session)
F9	Toggle sidebar
Ctrl+,	Preferences

Requirements

Python ≥ 3.10, GTK 4, libadwaita ≥ 1.5, VTE (GTK 4 build), PyGObject — from your distro's packages:

# Ubuntu / Debian
sudo apt install python3-gi gir1.2-gtk-4.0 gir1.2-adw-1 gir1.2-vte-3.91

# Fedora
sudo dnf install python3-gobject gtk4 libadwaita vte291-gtk4

# Arch
sudo pacman -S python-gobject gtk4 libadwaita vte4

Plus the claude CLI on your PATH.

Installing with pipx? PyGObject comes from the system, so use pipx install --system-site-packages claude-session-manager-gtk.

Install

Ubuntu — PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:matemiller992/claude-session-manager
sudo apt update && sudo apt install claude-session-manager

Arch — AUR: yay -S claude-session-manager

Any distro — pipx: pipx install --system-site-packages claude-session-manager-gtk

Debian/Ubuntu — .deb package (from the latest release):

sudo apt install ./claude-session-manager_0.8.0_all.deb

Dependencies are pulled in automatically; the app appears in your app grid as "Claude Session Manager".

From source:

cd ClaudeSessionManager
python3 -m claude_session_manager

Or install the desktop launcher + icon (shows up in the app grid as "Claude Session Manager"):

./data/install.sh

Terminal shortcuts: Ctrl+Shift+C copy, Ctrl+Shift+V paste.

Layout

claude_session_manager/
├── app.py        # Adw.Application entry point + CSS
├── window.py     # main window: split view, sidebar, tabs, actions, dialogs
├── sessions.py   # session discovery + transcript statistics
├── state.py      # persistent app state (names, favorites, hidden, settings)
├── prefs.py      # preferences dialog
└── terminal.py   # VTE terminal tab spawning the claude CLI
data/
├── io.github.r4nd3l.ClaudeSessionManager.desktop   # launcher template
├── icons/io.github.r4nd3l.ClaudeSessionManager.svg # app icon
└── install.sh                              # install launcher + icon for current user
scripts/
├── build_deb.sh                            # build the .deb package into dist/
└── make_demo_data.py                       # fake sessions for screenshots/demos

Publishing (maintainers)

Releases are one step: push a v* tag. .github/workflows/release.yml then builds the wheel/sdist and the .deb, creates the GitHub Release (with the .deb attached and auto-generated notes), and publishes to PyPI via trusted publishing (OIDC — no API tokens).

# bump version in pyproject.toml / __init__.py / debian/changelog, commit, then:
git tag -a v0.8.0 -m v0.8.0 && git push origin v0.8.0

PyPI trusted-publisher setup expects workflow release.yml (owner r4nd3l, repo claude-session-manager). The AUR and PPA are updated separately (see packaging/).

Roadmap

• Distribution: AUR, Ubuntu PPA, Flathub
• Optional: terminal color themes, "watch a project", i18n