Claude Recall in Claude Desktop
The killer integration. Claude Desktop natively supports MCP. Add the recall server and you can ask Claude things like “Which past session covered the postgres migration you wrote in March?” or “Pull in the context from session abc12345 and pick up from there.” Claude Desktop becomes the search-and-recall front end for your entire Claude Code history.
Setup
One config file edit. Restart the app. Done.
Config path
- macOS:
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json - Windows:
%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
Block to add
{
"mcpServers": {
"recall": {
"command": "claude-recall-mcp"
}
}
}Then restart Claude Desktop. The MCP indicator at the bottom of the chat input should show “recall” in the connected list.
Try it
Three prompts to verify the integration works.
- What past Claude Code sessions do I have? List the most recent ten.
- Search my sessions for “migration rollback” and summarize what I tried.
- Pull in context from session abc12345 and continue from where it left off.
FAQ
What can Claude Desktop do with Claude Recall connected?
Search every past Claude Code session, recall a specific session into the current chat as context, find semantically similar past sessions, list and apply tags, browse projects, and read full conversation transcripts. Effectively, Claude Desktop becomes the front end for your entire Claude Code history.
Does this require a Claude Pro or Max subscription?
No. MCP server access in Claude Desktop is free for any account tier. Claude Recall itself has a free local tier; the Pro features (semantic search, cog-graph, IDE shortcuts) sit behind a one-time purchase but everything works without it.
Where does the data live?
Local SQLite at ~/.recall/. The recall MCP server reads only that database. Claude Code session JSONLs at ~/.claude/projects/ are read-only inputs; Claude Recall never writes to them.
Last updated April 2026