01 · QUICK START
Find old AI conversations.
Remember the fix, but not the project or agent? Search the local history that Swob can read, check the conversation, then return to the client that created it.
Start with your local history
- Install Swob for your Mac
Choose Apple Silicon or Intel in the download section. The public installer is v1.3.1. Use the official release for its assets and release notes.
- Choose your Vault and sources
During setup, choose where Swob keeps its local library. Review the source selection before completing setup: excluded sources are outside that library’s browsing and backup scope. Keep a separate backup of data you need.
- Let the first scan finish
Swob reads supported histories already on your Mac. It cannot search a conversation that was never saved locally, or content that its source adapter cannot parse.
Search across conversations
- Use the search box in the main window
Press ⌘K to focus it. Enter a distinctive word from the conversation, such as
redirect. This searches indexed message content across supported sessions; you do not need the original session ID. - Read the matching excerpts
Results show matching text and timestamps. Open a result to read the conversation in Swob. Check the source, project and time before treating it as the session you wanted.
- Continue only after checking the context
Reading a result does not require launching the original agent. When you are ready to work, use the session’s Resume action and follow the source and client support guide.
Imagine you discussed a redirect loop in a project called sample-shop, but also mentioned redirects in another project. Search redirect, compare the excerpts, then confirm the project and read the surrounding exchange. These names are invented to illustrate the workflow; they are not real user data or a promise about your search results.
Use Spotlight when you remember the project
Swob also has a separate Spotlight window. Its matching uses session information such as custom titles, available user messages and project paths, with source aliases like codex. For the example above, codex sample-shop can narrow the candidates when both source and project match. It is different from the main window’s full-text index; neither is a general semantic search engine.
In Spotlight, use the arrow keys to select a result and ⌘Enter to open it in Swob for review. Enter or clicking a result starts Resume where available. Use the open-in-Swob arrow when you only want to read.
If the conversation is missing
- Try a shorter, distinctive word that actually appeared in a message. A description of the topic may not match its wording.
- Wait for an active scan or search to finish. A displayed search error is different from a completed search with no matches.
- Check that the source is included and its original history or a usable local archive is present. A metadata-only entry does not mean the transcript is searchable.
- Check your installed version. In v1.3.1, Claude Code and Codex have available search support; Cursor, OpenCode and ZCode search are experimental. Detection-only sources do not provide searchable message bodies.
The current source matrix describes newer source code and can be ahead of the installer. The v1.3.1 capability definitions document the release boundary. No search result does not, by itself, prove that a conversation was deleted.