Claude Sync — Memory, Skills, Sessions across Machines

Public beta — under active development. Frequent releases focused on Claude Code workflow continuity across machines. Marketplace reviews and repository feedback directly inform the roadmap.

Pick up exactly where you left off — on any machine. Claude Sync mirrors your Claude Code working state through your own Google Drive, with a drive.file scope so the extension can only see files it creates.

Install from the Marketplace — search Claude Sync in the Extensions view.

Overview

Sign in once per machine. From then on, every write to ~/.claude/ lands on your Drive within seconds, and every poll cycle pulls remote changes back. Per-project memory follows the git remote URL, not the local folder path, so cloning the same repo elsewhere just works.

Highlights: 🔐 zero-setup OAuth · ⚡ per-file sync with 3-way merge · 🗂️ per-project + global scopes · 🧩 in-editor conflict resolution · 🔒 your Drive, your keys

Why install it

Capabilities

Sync

• Two lanes, picked per file type. Hot lane (per-file, 3-way merge) for things you edit constantly — memory, plans, skills, CLAUDE.md, optionally settings.json. Cold lane (per-project zip snapshot, last- writer-wins) for session transcripts and subagent runs.
• Push within ~1.5 s of a write, pull every 45 s by default (configurable via claudeSync.pullIntervalSec).
• Identity = git remote URL, normalised across https:// and git@ forms. Open the same repo from any folder on any machine and Claude Sync recognises it.
• ${HOME} templating for settings.json so hook and MCP paths survive moving between macOS, Linux, and Windows.
• Sync other projects… in the panel opens a multi-select picker of every Claude-stored project under ~/.claude/projects/ that still has a git remote, so you can sync repos that aren't currently open in this VS Code window.

Conflicts

• Conflicts editor tab lists every conflicted file across project + global scopes, expandable per file.
• Take local / Take remote per hunk with side-by-side panels; bulk "All local" / "All remote" per file; Save & Push Resolved writes the resolved bytes and triggers the next sync tick.
• Or hand-edit — Open the file in VS Code's normal merge UI; saving clears the conflict flag automatically.

Onboarding

• 3-step flow in the sidebar — OAuth client → Sign in → pick what to sync → Let's go. Choices persist; sign in on another machine later and the panel jumps straight to the app view.
• Scope presets on Step 3 — Recommended, Per-project only, Everything, None — one click sets the seven scope toggles to a sensible combination. Individual checkboxes still cover the long tail.
• Switch accounts in one click from the sidebar if you sign in with a different Google account; sync state for the old account is cleared automatically.

Privacy & security

• Refresh tokens stored in the OS keychain via VS Code SecretStorage — Keychain on macOS, Credential Manager on Windows, libsecret on Linux.
• No outbound calls outside Google's OAuth + Drive endpoints. Zero telemetry, zero analytics, no third-party SDKs.
• drive.file scope — Claude Sync can only see files it creates. The rest of your Drive stays invisible. Full details in PRIVACY.md.

Reliability

• Local cache + state at ~/.claude-sync/ with atomic write, pre-extract backups (7-day TTL), and a Rebuild sync state from Drive recovery command if state ever drifts.
• Pre-uninstall cleanup — Claude Sync: Delete local cache + state wipes the local footprint in one click before you remove the extension.
• Failure escalation — three consecutive failed sync ticks surface a warning toast with one-click paths to logs and the diagnostic export, so silent outages don't go unnoticed.
• Diagnostic export — Claude Sync: Export diagnostics bundles redacted state, recent activity, and the last 500 log lines into a single Markdown file for bug reports.

Get started

1. Install from the Marketplace — search Claude Sync in the Extensions view, or code --install-extension ClaudeTools.claude-code-sync.
2. Open the Claude Sync sidebar (☁ icon in the activity bar) and walk the 3-step onboarding.
3. Edit ~/.claude/ as usual. Changes propagate to your other machines automatically.

That's it. Sensible defaults work without any configuration.

What gets synced

Toggle any scope during onboarding or later from VS Code Settings (claudeSync.scope.*). settings.json is off by default because most entries are machine-specific (hooks, MCP server paths).

Excluded by design: plugins/, cache/, backups/, ide/, dotfiles under skills/, shell-snapshots/, session-env/, telemetry/, downloads/, .env.

Settings

Search Claude Sync in Settings to configure:

• Background sync — master switch (claudeSync.enabled) and poll interval (claudeSync.pullIntervalSec, default 45 s).
• Scope toggles — claudeSync.scope.memory, plans, skills, claudeMd, settings, sessions, fileHistory.
• OAuth — claudeSync.oauth.useBuiltin to switch between the bundled client and your own; client ID/secret for the custom path.
• Cold-lane behaviour — claudeSync.coldLane.idleMinutes controls how long a session must sit idle before its transcript is backed up.
• Verbose logs — claudeSync.debug writes diagnostic output to the Claude Sync Output channel.

Defaults work out of the box.

Advanced — bring your own OAuth client

The bundled client gets you started instantly. To own the credentials end-to-end (organisations, audit-heavy workflows):

1. https://console.cloud.google.com → create or pick a project.
2. APIs & Services → Library → enable Google Drive API.
3. OAuth consent screen — User Type External, app name claude-sync, scope .../auth/drive.file. Publish to In Production (no verification needed — drive.file is non-sensitive).
4. Credentials → OAuth client ID → type Desktop app. Copy ID
   • secret into VS Code Settings (claudeSync.oauth.useBuiltin = false, then paste both fields).

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for release notes.

License

MIT — © 2026 Claude Sync contributors.