Session Management

Gemini CLI includes robust session management features that automatically save your conversation history. This allows you to interrupt your work and resume exactly where you left off, review past interactions, and manage your conversation history effectively.

Automatic Saving

Every time you interact with Gemini CLI, your session is automatically saved. This happens in the background without any manual intervention.

What is saved: The complete conversation history, including:
- Your prompts and the model’s responses.
- All tool executions (inputs and outputs).
- Token usage statistics (input/output/cached, etc.).
- Assistant thoughts/reasoning summaries (when available).
Location: Sessions are stored in ~/.gemini/tmp/<project_hash>/chats/.
Scope: Sessions are project-specific. Switching directories to a different project will switch to that project’s session history.

Resuming Sessions

You can resume a previous session to continue the conversation with all prior context restored.

From the Command Line

When starting the CLI, you can use the --resume (or -r) flag:

Resume latest:
Terminal window
```
gemini --resume
```
This immediately loads the most recent session.
Resume by index: First, list available sessions (see Listing Sessions), then use the index number:
Terminal window
```
gemini --resume 1
```
Resume by ID: You can also provide the full session UUID:
Terminal window
```
gemini --resume a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890
```

From the Interactive Interface

While the CLI is running, you can use the /resume slash command to open the Session Browser:

/resume

This opens an interactive interface where you can:

Browse: Scroll through a list of your past sessions.
Preview: See details like the session date, message count, and the first user prompt.
Search: Press / to enter search mode, then type to filter sessions by ID or content.
Select: Press Enter to resume the selected session.

Managing Sessions

Listing Sessions

To see a list of all available sessions for the current project from the command line:

gemini --list-sessions

Output example:

Available sessions for this project (3):

  1. Fix bug in auth (2 days ago) [a1b2c3d4]
  2. Refactor database schema (5 hours ago) [e5f67890]
  3. Update documentation (Just now) [abcd1234]

Deleting Sessions

You can remove old or unwanted sessions to free up space or declutter your history.

From the Command Line: Use the --delete-session flag with an index or ID:

gemini --delete-session 2

From the Session Browser:

Open the browser with /resume.
Navigate to the session you want to remove.
Press x.

Configuration

You can configure how Gemini CLI manages your session history in your settings.json file.

Session Retention

To prevent your history from growing indefinitely, you can enable automatic cleanup policies.

{
  "general": {
    "sessionRetention": {
      "enabled": true,
      "maxAge": "30d", // Keep sessions for 30 days
      "maxCount": 50 // Keep the 50 most recent sessions
    }
  }
}

enabled: (boolean) Master switch for session cleanup. Default is false.
maxAge: (string) Duration to keep sessions (e.g., “24h”, “7d”, “4w”). Sessions older than this will be deleted.
maxCount: (number) Maximum number of sessions to retain. The oldest sessions exceeding this count will be deleted.
minRetention: (string) Minimum retention period (safety limit). Defaults to "1d"; sessions newer than this period are never deleted by automatic cleanup.

Session Limits

You can also limit the length of individual sessions to prevent context windows from becoming too large and expensive.

{
  "model": {
    "maxSessionTurns": 100
  }
}

maxSessionTurns: (number) The maximum number of turns (user + model exchanges) allowed in a single session. Set to -1 for unlimited (default).

Behavior when limit is reached:
- Interactive Mode: The CLI shows an informational message and stops sending requests to the model. You must manually start a new session.
- Non-Interactive Mode: The CLI exits with an error.