# Chat Persistence & History

Never lose a conversation. Every message is saved server-side in real time and accessible from any device — start an analysis on your laptop, review it on your phone.

Note
Chat history is stored on Treasure AI's servers, not in your browser or on your device. There is nothing to configure — persistence is automatic from your first message.

## Objective

Find, organize, and manage past conversations so that valuable analyses, segment definitions, and query results remain accessible to your team.

## Prerequisites

- Signed in to Treasure AI Studio ([Getting Started](/products/ai-studio/getting-started))


## How Chats Are Saved

Every message you send and every response the AI generates is persisted on the server in real time.

- **No local storage dependency.** Your conversations are stored server-side, not in the browser or on your device.
- **Cross-device access.** Sign in on any platform (Web, Desktop, or Mobile) and your full chat history is available.
- **Session-based.** Each chat has its own message history and context window. On Web and Desktop, a new chat is saved in a [work folder](/products/ai-studio/concepts/work-folders) and shares that folder's file space; a chat with no work folder keeps its files to itself.


## Recent Chats

**Recent Chats** is the sidebar section that lists your conversations from every work folder, most recently active first. Every chat appears here whether or not it belongs to a work folder, so it is the one place to look for any conversation.

### Web & Desktop

Recent Chats groups conversations by when they were last active, under four headings: **Today**, **Previous 7 Days**, **Previous 30 Days**, and **Older**. A heading appears only when it has chats, and the most recently active chat comes first within each group.

Each row shows:

- **Chat title** — Auto-generated or manually renamed (see [Auto-Titled Conversations](/products/ai-studio/chat/chat-auto-titling))
- **Work folder** — The name of the work folder the chat belongs to, at the trailing edge of the row. Chats with no work folder are marked **Legacy** instead; see [Chats Without a Work Folder](/products/ai-studio/concepts/work-folders#chats-without-a-work-folder)
- **Time indicator** — A short relative timestamp showing how recently the chat was active (e.g., "2m", "1h", "3d"). It appears on hover, beside the work folder name, along with the ⋯ menu
- The currently active chat is highlighted


The section shows a digest of your most recent conversations rather than the whole history. Click **Show all** at the end of the list to expand it — older chats then load as you scroll — and **Show fewer** to collapse it back to the digest.

### Mobile (iOS)

The home screen shows your chats in the **Chats** section, below **Projects**. Tap any chat to open it.

## Sending a Message Moves a Chat to the Top

Sending a message moves that chat to the top of **Today** in Recent Chats immediately, and Studio briefly highlights the row and scrolls it into view so you can see where it went. Recent Chats orders conversations by when they were last active, not when they were created, so the chats you are actually working in stay at the top of the list.

## Finding a Chat's Work Folder

Recent Chats names each chat's work folder on its own row, so you can tell where a conversation lives without opening it. Opening a chat also reveals its folder in the **Work Folders** section: Studio expands the section when you move to a different folder, briefly highlights that folder's row, and scrolls it into view.

To see one folder's conversations on their own, expand that work folder in the **Work Folders** section and open its **Chats** list, or open the work folder's page, which lists the same conversations in its **Chats** section. See [Work Folders](/products/ai-studio/concepts/work-folders) for how folders organize chats and files.

## Searching Chats

### Web & Desktop

Search lives behind a **search (🔍) toggle** in the sidebar header. Click it to reveal the search box (labeled **"Search chats..."**), which is focused automatically. As you type, both your chats and work folders filter in real time to show only matching entries; if nothing matches, the list is empty. Press **Escape** or click the toggle again to close the search — closing clears the filter, and the search also closes when you navigate to a chat or work folder.

### Mobile (iOS)

Scroll to the top of the chat list to reveal the search field.

## Renaming a Chat

By default, Studio automatically generates a title for each conversation based on the first exchange (see [Auto-Titled Conversations](/products/ai-studio/chat/chat-auto-titling)). You can rename any chat manually.

### Web & Desktop

Click the ⋯ menu on a chat and select **"Rename"**. The title becomes an editable field inline in the sidebar. After editing:

- Press **Enter** or submit to save
- Press **Escape** to cancel


Chat item in edit mode with title selected in a text field
### Mobile (iOS)

Swipe left on a chat in the list to reveal action buttons, then tap **Rename**.

## Deleting a Chat

### Web & Desktop

1. Click the ⋯ menu on the chat you want to delete
2. Select **"Delete"**
3. A confirmation dialog names the chat and warns that this permanently deletes the chat and its messages
4. Click **Delete** to confirm, or **Cancel** to keep the chat


Warning
Deleting a chat with no work folder permanently removes it, its messages, and any files that belong to that chat alone. This cannot be undone. Files that live in a work folder are unaffected — they belong to the folder, not the chat, and are retained when the chat is deleted. See [File Retention & Deletion](/products/ai-studio/files/file-upload-download#file-retention--deletion) for details.

### Mobile (iOS)

Swipe left on a chat in the list to reveal action buttons, then tap **Delete**.

## Chat Retention Period

Organization administrators can configure how long chat history is retained before automatic deletion. Chats older than the configured period are automatically and permanently deleted.

For details on how to configure the retention period, see [Chat Data Retention](/products/ai-studio/security/data-retention).

## Sessions vs. Saved Chats

A chat's **working session** — the sandbox that runs the AI — is released after a period of inactivity to free resources. This does **not** delete the conversation. The chat stays in your history: open it any time to read the full message history, and send a message (or click **Resume**) to restart the session and continue. See [When a Session Ends](/products/ai-studio/chat/chat#when-a-session-ends).

A chat leaves your history in three ways: you delete it, it passes the organization's [retention period](#chat-retention-period), or you delete the work folder it belongs to. When you delete a work folder, the conversations inside it are removed — not moved elsewhere — so download anything you need before deleting the folder.

## Differences from Treasure Studio Labs

| Feature | Treasure Studio Labs | Treasure AI Studio |
|  --- | --- | --- |
| **Storage** | Local (on your machine) | Server-side (cloud) |
| **Cross-device access** | No — each device had its own history | Yes — all devices share the same history |
| **Chat search** | `Cmd+O` to search conversations | Search behind a 🔍 toggle in the sidebar header |
| **Message clipping** | Clip important messages for quick reference | Not available in GA |


## Verification

- [ ] Start a conversation on one device and see it listed on another device
- [ ] Search for a past conversation by title and open it
- [ ] Rename a chat and see the updated title across all devices
- [ ] Send a message in a chat from an earlier day and see it move to the top of **Today** in Recent Chats


## Troubleshooting

| Issue | Solution |
|  --- | --- |
| Chat missing from history | Recent Chats shows a digest, not your full history — click **Show all** to expand it, then scroll to load older chats. Searching by title finds a chat regardless of which work folder it belongs to |
| Search returns no results | Search matches on chat titles only. If the title was auto-generated, try keywords that describe the conversation topic |
| Deleted chat still appears | Refresh the page or restart the app. The chat list may take a moment to sync |


## Next Steps

- [AI Chat Interface](/products/ai-studio/chat/chat) — Sending messages and understanding responses
- [Auto-Titled Conversations](/products/ai-studio/chat/chat-auto-titling) — How Studio names your chats
- [Work Folders](/products/ai-studio/concepts/work-folders) — How work folders group chats and which folder new chats are saved to
- [Core Concepts](/products/ai-studio/concepts) — Work Folders, models, and credits