session-management.md

Manage sessions and history

Resume, browse, and rewind your conversations with Gemini CLI. In this guide, you'll learn how to switch between tasks, manage your session history, and undo mistakes using the rewind feature.

Prerequisites

• Gemini CLI installed and authenticated.
• At least one active or past session.

How to resume where you left off

It's common to switch context—maybe you're waiting for a build and want to work on a different feature. Gemini makes it easy to jump back in.

Scenario: Resume the last session

The fastest way to pick up your most recent work is with the --resume flag (or -r).

gemini -r

This restores your chat history and memory, so you can say "Continue with the next step" immediately.

Scenario: Browse past sessions

If you want to find a specific conversation from yesterday, use the interactive browser.

Command: /resume

This opens a searchable list of all your past sessions. You'll see:

• A timestamp (e.g., "2 hours ago").
• The first user message (helping you identify the topic).
• The number of turns in the conversation.

Select a session and press Enter to load it.

How to manage your workspace

Over time, you'll accumulate a lot of history. Keeping your session list clean helps you find what you need.

Scenario: Deleting sessions

In the /resume browser, navigate to a session you no longer need and press x. This permanently deletes the history for that specific conversation.

You can also manage sessions from the command line:

# List all sessions with their IDs
gemini --list-sessions

# Delete a specific session by ID or index
gemini --delete-session 1

How to rewind time (Undo mistakes)

Gemini CLI's Rewind feature is like Ctrl+Z for your workflow.

Scenario: Triggering rewind

At any point in a chat, type /rewind or press Esc twice.

Scenario: Choosing a restore point

You'll see a list of your recent interactions. Select the point before the undesired changes occurred.

Scenario: Choosing what to revert

Gemini gives you granular control over the undo process. You can choose to:

1. Rewind conversation: Only remove the chat history. The files stay changed. (Useful if the code is good but the chat got off track).
2. Revert code changes: Keep the chat history but undo the file edits. (Useful if you want to keep the context but retry the implementation).
3. Rewind both: Restore everything to exactly how it was.

How to fork conversations

Sometimes you want to try two different approaches to the same problem.

1. Start a session and get to a decision point.
2. Save the current state with /chat save decision-point.
3. Try your first approach.
4. Later, use /chat resume decision-point to fork the conversation back to that moment and try a different approach.

This creates a new branch of history without losing your original work.

Next steps

• Learn about Checkpointing to understand the underlying safety mechanism.
• Explore Task planning to keep complex sessions organized.
• See the Command reference for all /chat and /resume options.