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feat: Dynamic sidebar sorting for active projects and sessions #11759
Description
Feature Request
Problem
When working with multiple projects and sessions, it can be difficult to quickly find and switch to the project/session that Claude is currently working on. The sidebar maintains a static order, requiring users to scroll or search for active work.
Proposed Solution
Automatically move projects and sessions to the top of the sidebar when Claude starts working on them. This would make it much easier to:
- Track which project Claude is currently working on
- Quickly switch between active sessions
- Manage multiple concurrent projects
Implementation Details
- Add a new setting: "Dynamic sidebar sorting" in Settings → General → Desktop
- When a session status becomes "busy" (Claude starts working):
- Move the project to the top of the project list
- Sort sessions within the project by activity (most recent first)
- The feature should be toggleable for users who prefer static ordering
Additional Context
This is particularly useful for power users who work with many projects simultaneously and want to quickly access their most active work.
Reacted by Xavier Chanthavong
Activity
mguttmann commentedon Feb 2, 2026
mguttmann commentedon Feb 2, 2026
Update: Pin/Unpin Projects added
In addition to the dynamic sorting, I've now added the ability to pin projects to the top of the sidebar:
This covers the use case where you have a few projects you work on daily and want them always at the top, while still benefiting from dynamic sorting for everything else.
mguttmann commentedon Feb 2, 2026
rsanchez commentedon Mar 2, 2026
I've implemented a subset of this: a user-configurable sort order for sidebar projects with three modes: manual (existing drag-and-drop), recent activity (by latest session update time), and alphabetical.
The setting lives in Settings > Appearance and the sort is live/reactive. Drag-and-drop is automatically disabled when an auto-sort mode is active.
Happy to open a PR if this direction looks good.
github-actions commentedon May 2, 2026
To stay organized issues are automatically closed after 60 days of no activity. If the issue is still relevant please open a new one.
djbclark commentedon Jul 13, 2026
This is related to #35779 (no manual session rename). The combination of these two missing features makes session navigation genuinely difficult — there's no way to pin important sessions to a known position, and no way to give them memorable names to find them again. On smartphone screens especially, where only the first few words of each auto-generated title are visible, it's a lot of scrolling through indistinguishable entries. Either feature would mitigate the other's absence; having neither is painful.