Cryosave

Freeze your workspace. Thaw it when you're ready.

Save and restore your entire Claude Code workspace with one click — window positions, tabs, working directories, SSH connections, and conversation sessions.

Built for developers who run multiple Claude Code instances across different projects and need to shut down without losing their setup.

The Problem

You have 6 Claude Code windows spread across your screen — each in a different project, some SSH'd into a remote server. You need to shut down your laptop. When you boot back up, you've lost everything: which projects were open, where the windows were positioned, and which conversations were active.

The Solution

Cryosave sits quietly in your system tray (bottom-right notification area). Before shutting down, right-click the icon and hit Freeze Workspace. When you boot back up, hit Thaw Workspace — every window reopens at the exact same position with Claude Code resuming your conversations.

Features

• Window positions — freezes and thaws exact screen coordinates and sizes
• Claude Code sessions — resumes conversations with full context via claude --resume
• SSH sessions — reconnects to remote servers automatically
• Plain tabs — reopens PowerShell/cmd tabs at their working directories
• Model and mode — saves which Claude model (opus, sonnet, haiku) and permission mode each session was using, and restores them
• Session names — preserves --name labels so your thawed sessions keep their titles
• System tray — lives in the hidden icons area, out of your way
• Auto-freeze — configurable timer (default: every 5 minutes) so you never lose your setup
• Snapshot history — keeps your last 10 freezes with timestamps
• Toast notifications — quick confirmation when freezing
• Zero dependencies — pure PowerShell + built-in Windows APIs

Requirements

• Windows 10 or 11
• Windows Terminal
• Claude Code CLI
• PowerShell 5.1+ (included with Windows)

Install

git clone https://github.com/BenjisCollector/cryosave.git
cd cryosave
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\Install.ps1

The installer does three things:

1. Adds a system tray app that starts on login (hidden icons area, bottom-right)
2. Creates Start Menu shortcuts (searchable, can be pinned to taskbar)
3. Enables Windows Terminal's built-in tab persistence as a fallback

Usage

System Tray (recommended)

After install, the tray icon appears in your hidden icons area (click the ^ arrow in the bottom-right of your taskbar).

Action	What it does
Right-click > Freeze Workspace	Captures all windows, tabs, and Claude sessions
Right-click > Thaw Workspace	Reopens everything from last freeze
Right-click > List Saves	Shows available snapshots
Right-click > Open Saves Folder	Browse saved JSON files
Double-click	Quick freeze

Command Line

# Freeze all current sessions
.\Freeze.ps1

# Thaw from last freeze
.\Thaw.ps1

# Thaw a specific snapshot
.\Thaw.ps1 -Path "saves\2026-03-26T160000.json"

# List all saves
.\List-Saves.ps1

Taskbar Shortcuts

Open Start Menu, search for "Cryosave", right-click, and select Pin to taskbar.

What Gets Saved

Each freeze creates a timestamped JSON snapshot in the saves/ folder:

{
  "savedAt": "2026-03-26T16:00:00",
  "windows": [
    {
      "position": { "left": 100, "top": 50, "width": 900, "height": 700 },
      "title": "my-project",
      "tabs": [
        {
          "type": "claude",
          "cwd": "C:\\Users\\you\\my-project",
          "sessionId": "a26b1898-799d-4448-b8b7-7775dcf6babb",
          "sessionName": "feature-auth",
          "model": "claude-opus-4-6",
          "permissionMode": "bypassPermissions"
        },
        {
          "type": "ssh",
          "commandLine": "ssh root@my-server.com"
        },
        {
          "type": "powershell",
          "cwd": "C:\\Users\\you\\another-project"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Tab types detected

Type	How it's detected	What's saved	How it's restored
claude	Node.js child process running Claude CLI	Session ID, working directory, session name, model, permission mode	claude --resume <sessionId> --model <model> --permission-mode <mode>
ssh	SSH process in tab	Full SSH command line	Re-runs the SSH command
powershell	Default PowerShell/cmd/bash	Working directory	Opens tab at saved directory
other	Anything else	Command line, working directory	Opens tab at saved directory

How It Works

Freeze flow:
  Windows Terminal process
    -> EnumWindows (user32.dll) -> window positions & sizes
    -> Process tree walk (WMI) -> shell -> child processes
    -> Claude session files (~/.claude/sessions/*.json) -> session IDs
    -> Conversation JSONL (~/.claude/projects/) -> model, permissionMode, real CWD
    -> JSON snapshot

Thaw flow:
  JSON snapshot
    -> Phase 1: wt.exe --window css-N -> rapid launch of all windows & tabs
    -> Phase 2: SetWindowPos (user32.dll) -> batch position all windows
    -> claude --resume <id> --model <m> --permission-mode <p> -> resumes with full state

Process tree detection

Windows Terminal runs one OpenConsole.exe per tab, each hosting a shell process. The freeze script walks this tree:

WindowsTerminal.exe (PID 17104)
  |- OpenConsole.exe (tab 1)
  |    +- powershell.exe
  |         +- node.exe (claude)  <- detected as "claude" tab
  |- OpenConsole.exe (tab 2)
  |    +- ssh.exe                 <- detected as "ssh" tab
  +- OpenConsole.exe (tab 3)
       +- powershell.exe          <- detected as "powershell" tab

SSH + Remote Claude Code

For tabs where you're SSH'd into a server running Claude Code:

1. Freeze captures the SSH command (e.g., ssh root@my-server.com)
2. Thaw reconnects the SSH session automatically
3. Once connected, run claude --continue on the remote to resume your conversation

Configuration

Edit config.json:

{
  "maxSaves": 10,
  "restoreDelayMs": 1500,
  "enableToastNotifications": true,
  "autoSaveMinutes": 5
}

Setting	Default	Description
maxSaves	10	Number of timestamped snapshots to keep
restoreDelayMs	1500	Delay (ms) between opening windows. Increase to 2000-2500 on slower machines
enableToastNotifications	true	Show Windows toast notification after freezing
autoSaveMinutes	5	Auto-freeze interval in minutes. The tray app freezes automatically when WT is running. Toggle on/off via tray menu

Uninstall

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\Uninstall.ps1

Removes shortcuts and startup entry. Your frozen workspaces in saves/ are kept.

Known Limitations

Multiple virtual desktops: Freeze captures all windows across all desktops, but does not currently record which desktop each window belongs to. Thaw opens everything on the current desktop. See ROADMAP.md for planned virtual desktop support.

Single monitor assumed for positioning: Window coordinates are saved as absolute pixel values. If you thaw on a different monitor setup (e.g., docked vs undocked laptop), windows may appear off-screen. Increase restoreDelayMs and manually reposition.

SSH key/password prompts: SSH sessions are reconnected by re-running the saved command. If the original session used a password prompt or agent-forwarded key that's no longer available, the thaw will hang waiting for input.

Troubleshooting

Issue	Fix
Windows don't position correctly	Increase restoreDelayMs in config.json to 2000 or 2500
Claude session not found	Falls back to claude --continue (resumes most recent conversation in that directory)
"Access denied" on some tabs	Admin/elevated tabs can't be read from a non-elevated script
Toast notifications don't appear	Cosmetic only — freeze still works. Disable in config.json
Tray icon not visible	Click the ^ arrow in the bottom-right taskbar to show hidden icons

Project Structure

cryosave/
  Cryosave.ps1            # System tray app (lives in notification area)
  Freeze.ps1              # Freeze logic (standalone or called by tray)
  Thaw.ps1                # Thaw logic (standalone or called by tray)
  List-Saves.ps1          # List available snapshots
  Install.ps1             # Installer (shortcuts + startup + WT persistence)
  Uninstall.ps1           # Removes shortcuts and startup entry
  config.json             # User configuration
  lib/
    WinApi.ps1            # Win32 interop (window management, process inspection)
  saves/                  # Frozen workspace snapshots (gitignored)

License

MIT

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome. This was built to solve a real problem — if you have ideas for making it better, open an issue.