Manage multiple Claude Code sessions from one sidebar

Claude Code does not show your other sessions from inside the one you are in. If you run several in different terminals or tabs, the simplest fix is a mod. Claude Code Session Tracker is our open-source session manager for Claude Code: run /sessions and a sidebar lists every session open on your machine, the ones that need you first. It tells you when another session finishes or waits on you, and lets you message or close a session without switching to it.¹

The problem with many sessions

Once Claude Code is good enough to work on its own for a while, you start more than one session. One fixes a bug in the API. One writes docs. One tries a refactor on a branch. Soon you have five terminals or tabs open.

Then you lose track. One session has been waiting on a permission prompt for twenty minutes. Another finished an hour ago and you never read the result. You click through every tab to find out which one wants you, and by the time you find it, you have forgotten what you asked.

Each session only knows about itself. What you want is one list, in the session you are already in, that says which sessions need you, which are done, and which are still working.

That is why we built it. I was running six or seven sessions at the same time, because some tasks took a long time to finish and I did not want to sit idle waiting for one. What I kept losing was which chat had finished, and which one was waiting on me. Mods made it possible to build something simple for exactly that.

What the sidebar shows

Run /sessions and the sidebar opens. In the fullscreen layout on a wide terminal it opens by itself. Your current session is pinned at the top. The others are grouped, most recent first:¹

Each row shows the project (the folder the session runs in), the session's title, the model, and how full its context is, as a small bar with the token count and a percentage. For a session working through a task list, it shows the task it is on, such as 3 of 7. Rows under Needs you and Finished also show the git branch and your last prompt, so you remember what you asked before you switch.¹,²

This is roughly what it looks like (an illustration of the layout, not a screenshot):

This session
▸ api
  Fix retries in the webhook worker
  context ▰▰▱▱▱▱▱▱ 48k 24%              opus 5.5

Sort: recent  project

Needs you (1)
◆ billing                                   2m
  Add a refund endpoint
  context ▰▰▰▱▱▱▱▱ 81k 41%              opus 5.5
  waiting: permission prompt
  ⎇ refund-endpoint
  › add an endpoint for partial refunds
  ☆ pin  ✉ message  ✕ kill

Finished (1)                             clear
✓ landing                                  14m
  Rewrite the pricing FAQ
  ⎇ main
  › make the FAQ answers shorter
  ☆ pin  ✓ seen  ✉ message  ✕ kill

Working (1)
● docs                                     now
  Update the setup guide
  task 3/7 Checking every link
  ☆ pin  ✉ message  ✕ kill

Idle (3)                                  show

At the top, Sort: switches between this grouped view and one flat list by project. refresh reads everything again right away, and if reading fails, the pane says so instead of showing stale rows.¹

When another session comes to need you or finishes, you get a toast with the project and the session's title, plus a short sound: one for needs you, another for finished. Several sessions finishing together make one sound, not five. sound on/off mutes it.² The mod keeps a light check running even while the sidebar is hidden, so the toast still comes when you closed the pane.²

What you can do from a row

Every row has a few buttons, so most small decisions do not need a tab switch:¹

• pin keeps a session in a Pinned group at the top. Pins survive restarts, so a pinned session you close and resume later is still pinned.
• seen moves a Finished session to Idle once you have looked at it. clear does that for the whole Finished group.
• message opens a text field. What you type is sent to that session, and its Claude picks it up as a prompt. Handy for "yes, go on" or "run the tests too".
• kill closes the session after a yes or no. If the session is still working, the question says so. The mod will not close the session you are in, and it tells you once the other one has actually exited.²

Why a mod, and not a hook or an app

A mod is a plugin with a few functions that run inside Claude Code and get a say each time something happens.³ That is what makes this tool possible in the place you already work.

Not a settings hook. A settings hook is a script that runs on an event and exits. It can play a sound when Claude stops, but it cannot draw a list that stays on screen, with buttons you press. A mod can open a pane next to the transcript and redraw it.³ Session Tracker is exactly that: a pane called Sessions, refreshed every few seconds.²

Not a separate app. A desktop app would mean another window to watch, outside the terminal. The mod lives inside the session you already have open. It reads the session registry Claude Code keeps on your machine (one small file per open session, with its status), the transcripts next to it, and ps to drop sessions whose process is gone. And because it runs inside Claude Code, it can hand a message to another session through Claude Code itself, as a prompt.²

It also does not call a model. It reads files and runs a few small commands, so the only usage it causes is the prompts you send with message.² If mods are new to you, start with our plain guide: Claude Code mods, explained simply, with a first mod.

How to install it and try it

You need Claude Code 2.1.289 or later, with mods available to your account. If you are not sure, Anthropic's docs explain how to check whether mods can load.⁴ Then, from your shell:¹

claude plugin marketplace add fixter-dev/claude-code-session-tracker
claude plugin install session-tracker@claude-code-session-tracker

To update later, run claude plugin update session-tracker@claude-code-session-tracker.¹

To try it for one session without installing it:¹

git clone https://github.com/fixter-dev/claude-code-session-tracker
claude --plugin-dir ./claude-code-session-tracker

One tip makes a big difference: use fullscreen mode. There the list docks as a sidebar and you can click it with the mouse. In the default layout it sits above the prompt instead. Turn fullscreen on once, or start a single session with it:¹

> /tui fullscreen

# or, for a single session, from your shell:
CLAUDE_CODE_NO_FLICKER=1 claude

Then open a few sessions in other tabs, run /sessions in one of them, and give the others something to do.

Settings

There are two, and both are rows in /config:¹

• Sidebar width (default 56): how many columns wide the sidebar opens when docked. If you drag its edge, your drag wins.
• Finished for how long (default 4): how many hours a finished session stays under Finished before it counts as idle.

Pins, dismissed sessions and the sort order are shared by every session on the machine, so every sidebar you open shows the same thing.¹

What it cannot do

We would rather you know these before you install it. All of them are in the README:¹

• Only this machine. It reads files under ~/.claude, so sessions running in the cloud or on another computer never appear. Headless runs (claude -p) are hidden on purpose.
• Context percentages are partly guessed. A transcript does not record the size of the model's context window. Sessions on the same model as yours use your window, anything past 200k tokens is taken as a 1M window, and the rest show tokens only, with no percentage.
• Finished is a guess. The mod cannot tell whether you already looked at that terminal. A session stays Finished until you dismiss it, it starts working again, or the hours run out.
• Built for macOS first. The mod is built for macOS first, so sounds may not play on Linux or Windows. It also expects ps, grep, tail and git on the PATH.
• Early access API. Mods can change between Claude Code releases, so an update may break it until we update the mod.
• Unofficial. It is made by Fixter, MIT licensed, and not affiliated with or endorsed by Anthropic.

A mod runs with your permissions and is not sandboxed, so read what it does before you load it.³ The whole mod is two files under hooks/, with tests, in the repository.

With notifications, for when you are away

Session Tracker is for when you sit at the terminal. Its toast and sound show up inside Claude Code, so they help when you are in a session, less when you are in a meeting or another app.

For that we built a second mod, session-pings.⁵ It sends a system notification when a session is done or needs your input, says which session and why, and reminds you once if you do not answer. We wrote it up in our Claude Code notifications mod post.

The two fit together: the notification reaches you when you are away, and when you come back, the sidebar shows every session at once. For more mods sorted by job, see the best Claude Code mods.

Session Tracker shows you every session on your machine. None of them can see what your app is doing in production. Fixter is monitoring for teams that build with coding agents: you send your logs and traces over standard OpenTelemetry, and Fixter finds the issues and bugs in your system and tells you what broke and why. You pull them into Claude Code over MCP and fix them there.

Frequently asked questions

How do I see all my Claude Code sessions in one place?

Install Claude Code Session Tracker, an open-source mod by Fixter, and run /sessions. It opens a sidebar that lists every Claude Code session open on your machine, grouped into Needs you, Finished, Working and Idle, with the sessions that need you at the top. It needs Claude Code 2.1.289 or later with mods available to your account.

Can I see Claude Code sessions from other machines or the cloud?

No. Session Tracker reads the session registry and transcripts that Claude Code writes under ~/.claude on your own machine, so it only lists sessions running there. Sessions in the cloud or on another computer never appear, and headless runs (claude -p) are hidden on purpose.

How does it know a session needs me?

Claude Code keeps a small status file for each open session on your machine. The mod reads it every few seconds. A session that is waiting on a permission prompt or a question goes under Needs you, with the reason. Finished is a guess: a session that ended a turn in the last few hours (4 by default) and that you have not dismissed.

Does Session Tracker use my Claude tokens?

Not by itself. It does not call a model. The only tokens it causes are the prompts you send with message, which run in that session like any prompt. It reads local files, checks which session processes are still running with ps, and reads the git branch for the rows that show one.

Does it work on Linux or Windows?

It is built for macOS first: sounds may not play on Linux or Windows, and it expects ps, grep, tail and git on the PATH. The README makes no promise beyond that, so treat other systems as untested.

Is Claude Code Session Tracker official?

No. It is an unofficial mod made by Fixter and released under the MIT license. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Anthropic. It uses the mods API, which is in early access, so a Claude Code update can break it until the mod is updated.