Your Claude Session Is on the Other Mac. Now What?

You spent the morning on the desktop with a long, productive Claude session. Now you're at a café with the laptop. You pull the repo, open the terminal, type claude --resume… and the session isn't there. Of course it isn't. It's on the other Mac.

Part 5 of Working for the AI — the machine switch that turns you back into the agent's memory.

The short answer#

• AI coding sessions live on the machine where they started, so switching from desktop to laptop leaves the conversation behind.
• Anything that matters should already be in the repo — state file, decisions, next step — so a fresh session on the other machine can continue.
• Push every repo before you switch machines, and pull fast-forward only when you arrive.
• Moving the session itself is a bonus, not the plan; the state file is the plan.

Why the session doesn't follow you#

An AI coding session is stored on the machine that ran it. Your repo travels through git; the conversation doesn't. So on the second machine, you have the code but not the reasoning behind it — and you're the only one who remembers what was decided this morning.

Unless you wrote it down, you start re-explaining the project to a fresh session.

Plan for the session not being there#

The reliable fix is to make the session optional:

1. Before leaving the first machine, ask the agent: "Update the state file with where we are, what we decided, and the next step."
2. Commit and push every repo you touched. This is the step that fails most often — see uncommitted work across repos.
3. On the second machine, pull (fast-forward only), start a new session, and point it at the state file.

If the state file is good, the new session continues almost as well as the old one would have.

Moving the session itself#

Sometimes you really want the exact conversation — a long debugging thread, say. You can copy session files between machines, but be careful:

• Paths must match. Sessions are tied to the project's folder; a repo in a different location on the second machine won't pick them up.
• Sessions can contain secrets. Keys, tokens and logs you pasted are in there. Only move them through something private you control, and check first.
• It's still a bonus. If the move fails, the state file has you covered.

The same habits that help you find the right session on one machine — one task per session, the id noted next to the task — make moving them far less messy.

A two-minute switch routine#

Leaving: update state files → push every dirty repo. Arriving: pull every repo → open the task → resume or start a session from the state file. Two minutes each way, and nothing important stays behind.

Keep reading#

• Can't Find the Claude Session That Had the Fix?
• Uncommitted Work Across Repos: Did I Actually Save That?
• Stop Re-Explaining Your Project to the AI Every Session