diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 2455a40..2265524 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 [tool.poetry]
 name = "llm-chat"
-version = "0.6.0"
+version = "0.6.1"
 description = "A general CLI interface for large language models."
 authors = ["Paul Harrison <paul@harrison.sh>"]
 readme = "README.md"
diff --git a/src/llm_chat/settings.py b/src/llm_chat/settings.py
index 783c850..dd54961 100644
--- a/src/llm_chat/settings.py
+++ b/src/llm_chat/settings.py
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 from enum import StrEnum
 from pathlib import Path
 
+from pydantic import field_validator
 from pydantic_settings import BaseSettings, SettingsConfigDict
 
 
@@ -13,7 +14,7 @@ class Model(StrEnum):
 
 DEFAULT_MODEL = Model.GPT3
 DEFAULT_TEMPERATURE = 0.7
-DEFAULT_HISTORY_DIR = Path().absolute() / ".history"
+DEFAULT_HISTORY_DIR = Path.home() / ".llm_chat"
 
 
 class OpenAISettings(BaseSettings):
@@ -31,3 +32,10 @@ class OpenAISettings(BaseSettings):
         frozen=True,
         use_enum_values=True,
     )
+
+    @field_validator("history_dir")
+    def history_dir_must_exist(cls, history_dir: Path) -> Path:
+        """Ensure that the history directory exists."""
+        if not history_dir.exists():
+            history_dir.mkdir(parents=True)
+        return history_dir
diff --git a/tests/conftest.py b/tests/conftest.py
index b3bfafb..b315825 100644
--- a/tests/conftest.py
+++ b/tests/conftest.py
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 import os
+from pathlib import Path
 
 import pytest
 
@@ -7,3 +8,9 @@ import pytest
 def mock_openai_api_key() -> None:
     """Set a fake OpenAI API key."""
     os.environ["OPENAI_API_KEY"] = "dummy_key"
+
+
+@pytest.fixture(autouse=True)
+def mock_history_dir(tmp_path: Path) -> None:
+    """Set a fake history directory."""
+    os.environ["OPENAI_HISTORY_DIR"] = str(tmp_path / ".llm_chat")