/storage in Claude Desktop: where 14 GB go and what you can delete

TL;DR Type /storage in Cowork or in Code (or open Settings → Storage). The panel splits what Claude Desktop takes on disk into four blocks and lets you remove two of them: Cowork tasks and Code sessions idle for 30 days. Every session you remove takes its transcript with it, so you won't resume it later. The runtime, 9.8 GB on my Mac, stays put.

Claude Desktop was holding 14 GB on my Mac and nothing in the app said so. That's not a bug. It's the sum of Cowork tasks, Code sessions with their worktrees, the runtime that runs all of it, and caches. Until now the only measurable part was the worktrees of Code sessions, in a panel I covered before. Version v3.1623.0 adds a Storage panel to Settings that measures everything Claude uses on the computer, block by block, reachable three ways: the Settings entry, the /storage command typed into a Cowork conversation or a Code session, and the low disk space warning, which opens it on its own.

This is what it shows on my Mac (the panel rebuilt from my screenshot of October 21, 2026, with my numbers and the English UI labels):

The total is computed when the panel opens, and Refresh measures it again. Cowork tasks that run in the cloud don't count: they live on the server, not on your disk.

The four blocks, one by one

Cowork tasks. Each local task's folder: the conversation, the files you attached (uploads/) and the ones Claude produced (outputs/). They're small. In my case, 4 tasks and 134 MB, and all 4 have sat idle for over 30 days, which is the cutoff the panel uses to call them inactive.

Code sessions and worktrees. Two different things share this block. Worktrees are full copies of the repo, one per session, and they already have a tip of their own: my panel lists 3, and 2 of those are the ones the app keeps ready for the next session, so they aren't leftovers. The sessions are the real story: 132 of them. They're .jsonl transcripts in ~/.claude/projects/, the same plaintext folder the terminal uses, because Desktop runs the same Claude Code. The difference is that terminal transcripts expire after the 30 days of cleanupPeriodDays and Desktop transcripts don't: since v2.1.248, Claude Code keeps the transcript of any session you started or continued in Desktop or Cowork at any age. That's how you get to 132, and why removing them needs a panel.

Runtime. The big block, 9.8 GB out of 14, and the one that isn't yours: it's what the app needs in order to run. Two pieces: the Cowork workspace (the virtual machine image the tasks run in, plus the data disk the app creates for them) and the Claude Code versions Desktop downloads for itself, separate from whatever you installed in the terminal. On my Mac that's 2 versions; the docs don't say why two, or when the old one gets retired. On disk these are the vm_bundles/, claude-code/ and claude-code-vm/ folders inside the app's data folder (on macOS, ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/; the Open folder button at the bottom of the panel takes you there).

App caches and logs. The web cache, the built-in browser panes and the logs (~/Library/Logs/Claude/ on macOS). 2 GB here. The panel's release note doesn't say it can empty them; what exists for that predates the panel and lives under Help → Troubleshooting: Clear Cache and Restart and Free Up Cowork Disk Space.

What you can remove, and what goes with it

The release note names exactly two things the panel deletes: inactive Cowork tasks and inactive Code sessions. Inactive means 30 days without activity, and the panel counts them and sizes them before you touch anything. What each removal costs:

• A Cowork task goes with its attached files and with whatever Claude produced in it. Cowork projects and memory stay.
• A Code session goes with its transcript. Since Desktop v2.9939.2, deleting a session in the app also removes its .jsonl from ~/.claude/projects/, so you won't resume it afterwards, not in the app and not with claude --resume in the terminal. The project's files are untouched.
• That session's worktree is deleted if it's clean. With uncommitted changes, it stays: the same v3.1623.0 fixed a case where removing an inactive session's worktree also took an archived session's worktree nested inside it, changes included.

On my panel, what can go is 70.6 MB of tasks plus the idle share of the 132 sessions, which the main view doesn't break down. The runtime's 9.8 GB stay where they are. If what you need is real space, look at the worktrees first, and at claude purge for the projects you no longer open, which deletes transcripts per project without asking how old they are.

Stop the sessions from piling up again

The panel fixes today. To keep the sessions block from climbing back to 132, the setting lives in Claude Code, not in Desktop: desktopSessionCleanupPeriodDays, in ~/.claude/settings.json.

{
  "desktopSessionCleanupPeriodDays": 90
}

Claude Code deletes each Desktop or Cowork transcript once it's older than that limit and older than cleanupPeriodDays, 30 days by default; a value of 7 still keeps them for 30. Without the key (or at 0) they never expire. And for the worktrees left hanging, the Archive inactive sessions switch in Settings → Claude Code, covered here.

Reference

Official docs: Claude Desktop changelog, v3.1623.0 · Cleaned up automatically · desktopSessionCleanupPeriodDays

Requirements

• Claude Desktop v3.1623.0 or later (the release that adds Storage to Settings, bundling Claude Code 2.1.304). Not available on third-party (3P) deployments.
• /storage exists in the app's Cowork and Code tabs. Not in the terminal: on Claude Code 2.1.306 the command isn't there, and typing it only gets you a reply that no skill by that name is installed.
• The numbers are from my Mac on October 21, 2026; yours will depend mostly on how many Desktop sessions you've never deleted.