cursor-viewer

A local browser UI for reading through your Cursor AI chat histories — including tool calls, search, and support for exploring backups.

Built with Streamlit. No server, no account, no data leaving your machine.

What it does

• Lists all your Cursor chats grouped by project
• Renders tool calls (file reads, terminal commands, etc.) inline as collapsible sections
• Lets you search across projects and message content
• Supports pointing at a backup of your .cursor data directory, not just the live one

Install

Requires Python 3.10+. First, get pipx if you don't have it:

macOS

brew install pipx
pipx ensurepath

Linux

sudo apt install pipx      # Debian/Ubuntu
pipx ensurepath

Windows

scoop install pipx         # or: pip install --user pipx
pipx ensurepath

Then install cursor-viewer:

pipx install cursor-viewer

Then just run:

cursor-viewer

It opens in your browser at http://localhost:8501.

Configuration

The app figures out where your Cursor data lives automatically. If you want to override that:

One-off (flag):

cursor-viewer --cursor-path "/Volumes/Backup/Library/Application Support/Cursor"

Session (env var):

CURSOR_DATA_PATH="/path/to/cursor" cursor-viewer

Persistent default (UI): Open the Settings panel in the sidebar, enter your path, and hit "Save as default". That writes to ~/.cursor-viewer/config.json and sticks across restarts.

Priority order: flag > env var > saved config > auto-detected default.

Other options

cursor-viewer --help

--cursor-path PATH   path to Cursor's data directory
--port PORT          port to run on (default: 8501)

Running from source

git clone https://github.com/sahilsasane/cursor-viewer
cd cursor-viewer
uv sync
uv run streamlit run streamlit_app.py

How Cursor stores chats

Cursor keeps chat history in SQLite databases under its data directory:

• User/globalStorage/state.vscdb — composer/agent chats
• User/workspaceStorage/<id>/state.vscdb — per-workspace chats and metadata

cursor-viewer reads these directly, read-only, without touching any Cursor internals.