Ashish Patel

Posted on Apr 13

Claude Code Multi-Account Setup (Without Losing Context)

#webdev #claude #ai #programming

Here's how I run my personal and work Claude accounts without constantly logging out and losing context. Takes about 5 minutes to set up.

The Problem

You have two accounts:

Personal (whatever tier you're paying for)
Work (company's Claude)

Default behavior: everything lives in ~/.claude. Switch accounts = log out = lose your conversation. Sucks when you're mid-task.

The Fix

CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR environment variable. Point it to a different folder, Claude uses that instead. Simple.

Setup

1. Create folders

mkdir ~/.claude-personal
mkdir ~/.claude-work

2. Add these to your ~/.zshrc

claude-work() {
    CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR=~/.claude-work claude "$@"
}

Then source ~/.zshrc.

3. Log in once

claude-work /login

Do this for each account. Credentials get stored in their respective folders. Default claude keeps using ~/.claude for your personal one.

Usage

Command	Config
`claude`	`~/.claude`
`claude-work`	`~/.claude-work`

Run both in separate terminal tabs. No logout. Both logged in. Done.

Sharing History (Optional)

Want both accounts to share conversation history? One symlink:

rm -rf ~/.claude-work/projects
ln -sf ~/.claude/projects ~/.claude-work/projects

Now any account can --resume conversations from the other. Credentials still separate.

The Script (If You Want It)

Save as scripts/claude-accounts.sh:

#!/bin/bash

WORK_DIR="$HOME/.claude-work"

case "$1" in
    work) CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR="$WORK_DIR" claude "${@:2}" ;;
    *) claude "$@" ;;
esac

Run ./scripts/claude-accounts.sh work.

Or just use the functions in your shell. Either works.

Context Tips (Important)

Shared history helps, but don't rely on it alone. Do this instead:

CLAUDE.md - Create one in your project root. Claude reads it every session.

# Current

- Adding user auth
- Next: API integration

# Stack

- React + Vite
- TanStack Query

Tell Claude to update memory - Before ending a session: "Update memory with what we did."
End-of-day hand-off - "Summarize progress, update CLAUDE.md."

The Script

Full version with setup and share-history:

#!/bin/bash

PERSONAL_DIR="$HOME/.claude-personal"
WORK_DIR="$HOME/.claude-work"

setup() {
    mkdir -p "$PERSONAL_DIR" "$WORK_DIR"

    local zshrc="$HOME/.zshrc"
    local marker="# Claude Code multi-account"

    if ! grep -q "$marker" "$zshrc" 2>/dev/null; then
        cat >> "$zshrc" << 'EOF'

# Claude Code multi-account
claude-work() {
    CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR=~/.claude-work claude "$@"
}
EOF
        source "$zshrc"
    fi
}

share_history() {
    [ -d ~/.claude/projects ] && [ ! -L ~/.claude-work/projects ] && {
        rm -rf ~/.claude-work/projects
        ln -sf ~/.claude/projects ~/.claude-work/projects
    }
    echo "History linked!"
}

case "$1" in
    setup) setup ;;
    share-history) share_history ;;
    work) CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR="$WORK_DIR" claude "${@:2}" ;;
    *) claude "$@" ;;
esac

Run:

./scripts/claude-accounts.sh setup
./scripts/claude-accounts.sh share-history
./scripts/claude-accounts.sh work

That's It

Two isolated accounts. Optional shared history. Your context preserved via CLAUDE.md.

Works on macOS. Should work on Linux too (same CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR approach).

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