AIChatExporter/README.md

AI Chat Exporter

A personal backup tool for ChatGPT and Claude conversation history. Exports your chats to Markdown files and syncs them to Joplin as notes. Each conversation becomes a single .md file with YAML frontmatter, organised into folders that map directly to Joplin notebooks.

Supports incremental sync — only new or updated conversations are exported on each run. Every run is resumable: if interrupted, re-running picks up exactly where it left off.

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⚠️ Terms of Service Warning

Read this before using this tool.

This tool works by accessing unofficial, undocumented internal web API endpoints used by the ChatGPT and Claude web apps. These endpoints are not publicly supported by OpenAI or Anthropic and are subject to change or removal without notice.

Use of this tool may conflict with their Terms of Service:

• OpenAI: https://openai.com/policies/terms-of-use
• Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com/legal/consumer-terms

By using this tool, you accept that:

• You are using it entirely at your own risk
• Your account could potentially be suspended for automated or scripted access
• The internal APIs this tool relies on may break at any time without notice
• This tool is for personal archival use only — not commercial use

This tool is designed for a single user backing up their own conversations. Do not use it to scrape data at scale or for any commercial purpose.

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Installation

Linux / macOS

git clone <repo-url>
cd ai-chat-exporter
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Windows

No admin access required. Run these in Command Prompt (cmd.exe) — it's the simplest option on Windows because it doesn't have PowerShell's script execution policy restrictions.

git clone <repo-url>
cd ai-chat-exporter
python -m venv .venv
.venv\Scripts\activate
pip install -e ".[dev]"

All ai-chat-exporter commands work identically in Command Prompt.

Using PowerShell instead? If you prefer PowerShell, you may need to allow script execution first (one-time, current user only):

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope CurrentUser

Then activate the venv and run commands the same way.

Prerequisites:

• Python 3.11 or later — install from python.org. During installation, tick "Add Python to PATH".
• Git — install from git-scm.com if not already present.

Notes:

• The cache manifest and logs are stored in cache\ inside the install directory — the same as on Linux.
• File permission hardening (chmod 600) is silently ignored on Windows — not a concern for single-user desktop use.
• Joplin Web Clipper runs on localhost:41184 on all platforms; no configuration changes needed.

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First Run: Run Doctor

Before anything else, validate your setup:

ai-chat-exporter doctor

This checks token presence, format, token health (via the /api/auth/session error field), directory permissions, disk space, and live API connectivity. Fix any failures before proceeding.

Checking for API drift

The exporter reads ChatGPT's and Claude's undocumented internal web APIs, which can change shape without notice. The worst failure for a backup tool is silent — a response change that makes the exporter skip or mis-parse content without erroring. Run the canary to catch that early:

ai-chat-exporter canary

It probes one conversation per provider and checks only the fields the parser depends on (a renamed retrieval-tool author that would bypass the content-collapse, a new content type, drifted message fields, ignored attachments). OK means the live schema still matches; WARN/ERROR tells you exactly what changed. Worth running before a large export or on a schedule.

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Getting Your Session Tokens

Session tokens are how your browser stays logged in. This tool uses them to access your chat history on your behalf.

Tokens are entered manually — copy them from your browser's DevTools and run the wizard:

ai-chat-exporter auth

The wizard detects your OS, shows the correct DevTools shortcut, and writes the values to .env without echoing them to the terminal.

Why no auto-extraction from the browser? Modern Chromium browsers (Chrome 127+, current Brave) encrypt cookies on Windows with App-Bound Encryption: the key is bound to the browser through a SYSTEM-level service, so reading cookies off disk requires Administrator rights and a PsExec-style SYSTEM impersonation that antivirus flags as credential theft — and it still fails on Brave specifically. There is no reliable, non-invasive way to pull these cookies automatically, so the manual DevTools flow below is the supported path.

Token Lifetimes

Provider	Cookie Name	Lifetime	Expiry Detection
ChatGPT	__Secure-next-auth.session-token.0 + .1	refresh ~weekly	error field of /api/auth/session — doctor reports "ChatGPT token active". The token is an encrypted JWE, so its exp is not readable client-side, and the expires field is a misleading rolling window; the error (RefreshAccessTokenError when dead) is the honest signal.
Claude	sessionKey	~30 days	Opaque token — only detectable via 401 response

Finding Tokens in Chrome DevTools

1. Open the provider's website and make sure you're logged in
2. Press F12 (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+Option+I (macOS) to open DevTools
3. Click the Application tab
4. In the left panel, expand Cookies and click the site URL
5. Find the cookie by name and copy its Value

ChatGPT: go to https://chatgpt.com → find two cookies:

• __Secure-next-auth.session-token.0 — copy Value (starts with eyJ) → CHATGPT_SESSION_TOKEN
• __Secure-next-auth.session-token.1 — copy Value → CHATGPT_SESSION_TOKEN_1

ChatGPT splits large session tokens across two cookies to stay under the browser's 4KB cookie limit. Both are required.

Claude: go to https://claude.ai → find sessionKey → copy Value

When Tokens Expire

When a token expires you'll see a 401 Unauthorized error. To refresh:

• Re-run the auth wizard: ai-chat-exporter auth
• Or manually update the value in your .env file

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The auth Command

The easiest way to configure tokens is the interactive wizard:

ai-chat-exporter auth

This walks you through finding your token, validates it, shows the expiry date (ChatGPT only), and offers to write it to your .env automatically. Tokens are never echoed to the terminal.

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.env Setup

Copy .env.example to .env and fill in your values:

cp .env.example .env

Provider tokens

Variable	Description
CHATGPT_SESSION_TOKEN	ChatGPT session token chunk .0 (starts with eyJ…)
CHATGPT_SESSION_TOKEN_1	ChatGPT session token chunk .1 (the remainder)
CHATGPT_PROJECT_IDS	Comma-separated ChatGPT project IDs (see below)
CLAUDE_SESSION_KEY	Your Claude session key

Output

Variable	Default	Description
EXPORT_DIR	./exports	Where to write exported Markdown files
OUTPUT_STRUCTURE	provider/project/year	Folder structure (see below)
EXPORTER_HIDDEN_CONTENT	placeholder	What to do with content invisible in the provider's web UI (file-retrieval tool dumps, Custom Instructions): placeholder collapses to a one-line note with size, full keeps everything, omit drops it. Dumps can be 90% of a conversation's bytes.
EXPORTER_DOWNLOAD_MEDIA	images	Download conversation assets into a media/ folder beside each export and inline them: images (images only), all (also audio/voice clips), off (text placeholders only). Downloaded media is uploaded to Joplin as resources on the next joplin run.
MAX_CONVERSATIONS_PER_RUN	unlimited	Cap downloads per export run (per provider). Runs are resumable, so re-running continues where the cap stopped — useful to spread a large first export across several sessions.
REQUEST_DELAY	1.0	Seconds between consecutive API requests, with small random jitter, so traffic stays human-paced. Set 0 to disable.

Joplin

Variable	Default	Description
JOPLIN_API_TOKEN	—	Authorization token from Joplin Web Clipper settings
JOPLIN_API_URL	http://localhost:41184	Joplin API URL (change only if you've customised the port)
JOPLIN_REQUEST_TIMEOUT	30	Seconds before an API call times out. Increase for very large conversations.

Cache & logging

Variable	Default	Description
CACHE_DIR	./cache	Where to store the sync manifest
LOG_FILE	./cache/logs/exporter.log	Log file path (none to disable)

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ChatGPT Projects

ChatGPT project conversations are stored separately from your main conversation list and require extra configuration.

Finding your project IDs

1. Open ChatGPT and click a Project in the left sidebar
2. Look at the browser URL — it will look like: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-p-68c2b2b3037c8191890036fb4ae3ed9f-my-project/project
3. Copy the g-p-… part (everything up to but not including the slug after the second -)

Add all your project IDs to .env as a comma-separated list:

CHATGPT_PROJECT_IDS=g-p-68c2b2b3037c8191890036fb4ae3ed9f,g-p-anotherprojectid

The auth wizard can also guide you through this step interactively.

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Claude Code Sessions

The claude-code provider archives your local Claude Code agent transcripts — no tokens, no API, no ToS exposure. Sessions are read from ~/.claude/projects/.

ai-chat-exporter export --provider claude-code
ai-chat-exporter joplin --provider claude-code

Exports are prose-only by default: your prompts and Claude's write-ups are kept, tool activity is grouped into one-line placeholders (> 🔧 Tool output — 14 calls: Read ×9, Bash ×2 (86KB) — omitted), and internal reasoning is dropped (counted in the run summary). Set EXPORTER_HIDDEN_CONTENT=full to keep everything. Sessions become notes under their own top-level AI-ClaudeCode Joplin notebook, in a sub-notebook per launch folder. The provider is included in --provider all whenever a sessions directory exists.

Subagents. Claude Code stores subagent (Task-tool) transcripts as separate files under <session>/subagents/; each is folded into its parent session inline, as a collapsible <details> block labeled with the subagent's type and description (its own tool traffic is collapsed like the main dialogue).

Repo tags. Sessions launched from a workspace root all share one folder-named notebook, so titles carry the repos each session touched — Resume StartWRT project work [start-technologies] — for at-a-glance scanning and search. A file's repo is the git repository it lives in (nearest ancestor with a .git), resolved from the tool paths in the transcript, so work is tagged wherever it happened — even across workspaces — and config/one-off files are ignored (they aren't repos). Repos are frequency-ordered and capped at 3. To never tag specific repos, set CLAUDE_CODE_REPO_TAG_IGNORE (comma-separated). Note this reads your current git layout, so a repo you later delete or move drops from the tag on re-export.

Multiple locations. By default the provider scans ~/.claude/projects/ plus $CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR/projects when CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR is set. To scan additional roots (e.g. other machines' sessions copied onto this box), set CLAUDE_CODE_DIR to a :-separated list:

CLAUDE_CODE_DIR="$HOME/.claude/projects:/mnt/backup/laptop/.claude/projects"

Sessions from all roots are merged by folder (no per-machine label); if the same session UUID appears in two roots, the newer copy wins. Note the exporter only sees this machine's disk and cannot recover sessions Claude Code has already pruned — run it regularly.

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Output Structure

All exported files go under EXPORT_DIR. The folder structure maps directly to Joplin notebooks.

Default: provider/project/year

exports/
├── chatgpt/
│   ├── no-project/
│   │   └── 2024/
│   │       └── 2024-03-15_my-conversation_abc12345.md
│   └── learning-python/
│       └── 2024/
│           └── 2024-03-15_async-tutorial_def67890.md
└── claude/
    ├── no-project/
    │   └── 2024/
    │       └── 2024-06-01_docker-explained_ghi11111.md
    └── startos-packaging/
        └── 2024/
            └── 2024-06-10_manifest-setup_jkl22222.md

Joplin Notebook Mapping

Each provider+project combination maps to a flat Joplin notebook created automatically by the joplin command:

Export folder	Joplin notebook
exports/chatgpt/learning-python/	ChatGPT - Learning Python
exports/claude/startos-packaging/	Claude - Startos Packaging
exports/chatgpt/no-project/	ChatGPT - No Project
exports/claude/no-project/	Claude - No Project

Other OUTPUT_STRUCTURE options

Value	Result
provider/project/year (default)	exports/claude/my-project/2024/file.md
provider/project	exports/claude/my-project/file.md
provider/year	exports/claude/2024/file.md (projects ignored)

Filename format

YYYY-MM-DD_{title-slug}_{id[:8]}.md — e.g. 2024-06-10_manifest-setup_jkl22222.md

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CLI Reference

Global flags

--verbose / -v     DEBUG output to console
--quiet / -q       WARNING and above only
--debug            DEBUG + full tracebacks + redacted API response bodies
--no-log-file      Disable file logging
--version          Print version and exit

auth — Interactive token setup

ai-chat-exporter auth                  # manual wizard (DevTools flow)

Guided wizard to find and save session tokens and ChatGPT project IDs. Detects OS and shows the correct DevTools shortcut, then writes the values to .env.

doctor — Health check

ai-chat-exporter doctor

Checks: token presence, JWT validity and expiry, directory permissions, disk space, live API reachability. Exits with code 0 if all pass, 1 if any fail.

export — Export conversations

# Export everything (new/updated only)
ai-chat-exporter export

# Single provider
ai-chat-exporter export --provider claude

# JSON output
ai-chat-exporter export --format json

# Both Markdown and JSON
ai-chat-exporter export --format both

# Only conversations updated since a date
ai-chat-exporter export --since 2024-06-01

# Only conversations in a specific project (case-insensitive substring)
ai-chat-exporter export --project "learning python"

# Only conversations outside any project
ai-chat-exporter export --project none

# Write to a custom directory
ai-chat-exporter export --output /path/to/my/notes

# Preview without writing anything
ai-chat-exporter export --dry-run

Options: --provider [chatgpt|claude|claude-code|all], --format [markdown|json|both], --output PATH, --since YYYY-MM-DD, --project NAME, --hidden-content [full|placeholder|omit], --download-media [images|all|off], --max-conversations N, --force, --dry-run

Re-rendering the whole archive after an upgrade. New formatting or features (collapse policy, media downloads) only change conversations as they're re-exported. To re-render everything you already have, use --force — it re-exports every conversation even if unchanged, without cache --clear, so your Joplin note links are preserved (a later joplin run updates the existing notes instead of duplicating them).

A force re-render runs as a tracked "campaign": each run re-renders the least-recently-exported conversations, the "still to go" count shrinks each run, and finished providers do no further work. The simplest approach is one uncapped pass:

ai-chat-exporter export --force      # re-renders everything in one paced pass
ai-chat-exporter joplin              # update notes + upload media

Or spread the load with --max-conversations, re-running until it reports "Force re-render complete":

ai-chat-exporter export --force --max-conversations 50   # repeat until complete

list — List conversations

# List all conversations for all providers
ai-chat-exporter list

# Single provider
ai-chat-exporter list --provider chatgpt

# Filter by project
ai-chat-exporter list --project "learning python"

# Only conversations outside any project
ai-chat-exporter list --project none

Fetches and displays all conversations without exporting them. Useful for verifying what the tool can see before running an export.

joplin — Sync to Joplin

# Sync all pending conversations to Joplin
ai-chat-exporter joplin

# Preview what would be synced without sending anything
ai-chat-exporter joplin --dry-run

# Sync a single provider
ai-chat-exporter joplin --provider chatgpt

# Sync only conversations in a specific project
ai-chat-exporter joplin --project "learning python"

# Sync only conversations outside any project
ai-chat-exporter joplin --project none

Reads the local export cache and pushes each exported Markdown file to Joplin as a note. Notebooks are created automatically. Re-running is safe — notes are updated (not duplicated).

Prerequisites:

1. Run export first to generate the Markdown files
2. Open Joplin → Tools → Options → Web Clipper → enable the service
3. Copy the Authorization token and add JOPLIN_API_TOKEN=<token> to your .env
4. Joplin desktop must be open when you run this command

Options: --provider [chatgpt|claude|all], --project NAME, --dry-run

prune — Delete stale export files

# Preview what would be deleted
ai-chat-exporter prune --dry-run

# Delete (asks for confirmation; -y skips the prompt)
ai-chat-exporter prune

Deletes export files no longer referenced by the cache manifest — leftovers from old folder layouts or fixed bugs that would otherwise double-sync into Joplin. Refuses to run when the manifest is empty (e.g. right after cache --clear) so it can never wipe a freshly cleared archive. The doctor command separately verifies that every manifest entry's file exists on disk.

cache — Manage the sync manifest

# Show statistics
ai-chat-exporter cache --show

# Clear all cached entries (forces full re-export next run)
ai-chat-exporter cache --clear

# Clear a single provider
ai-chat-exporter cache --clear --provider claude

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How the Cache Works

The cache manifest lives at cache/manifest.json (inside the install directory) and records every exported conversation: its title, project, updated_at timestamp, output file path, and (after Joplin sync) the Joplin note ID.

On every export run:

1. Fetch the full conversation list from the provider
2. Compare each conversation's updated_at against the manifest
3. Export only conversations that are new or have been updated
4. Write each successfully exported conversation to the manifest immediately (not batched)

On every joplin run:

1. Read the manifest to find conversations not yet synced to Joplin, or re-exported since last sync
2. Push each pending Markdown file to Joplin (create or update)
3. Store the Joplin note ID in the manifest so subsequent runs update rather than duplicate

This design makes every run inherently resumable. If the tool is interrupted for any reason — rate limit, network drop, Ctrl+C, crash — simply re-run the same command. It will skip already-processed conversations and continue from where it stopped.

To force a full re-export: ai-chat-exporter cache --clear then re-run export.

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Troubleshooting

401 Unauthorized

Your session token has expired.

• Run ai-chat-exporter auth to get a new token interactively
• Or manually copy a fresh cookie value into your .env file

Note: Claude's sessionKey is an opaque string — the only way to know it's expired is the 401 error. ChatGPT JWTs have an exp claim that the doctor command can decode and display.

429 Rate Limited

The tool automatically pauses, saves progress, and exits with a clear message showing how many conversations were exported vs remaining. Just re-run the same export command to resume — the cache picks up exactly where it left off.

Joplin: "JOPLIN_API_TOKEN is not set"

You need to configure the token before running the joplin command:

1. Open Joplin desktop
2. Go to Tools → Options → Web Clipper
3. Enable the Web Clipper service
4. Copy the Authorization token shown on that page
5. Add JOPLIN_API_TOKEN=<token> to your .env file

Joplin: "Joplin is not responding"

Joplin desktop must be running when you run the joplin command. The Web Clipper service shuts down when Joplin is closed.

Joplin: "Joplin rejected the API token (HTTP 401)"

The token in JOPLIN_API_TOKEN doesn't match what Joplin expects. Get a fresh token from Joplin → Tools → Options → Web Clipper → Authorization token.

Joplin: note timed out

If you see a timeout error, Joplin took longer than JOPLIN_REQUEST_TIMEOUT seconds (default: 30) to respond. Possible causes:

• The conversation is very large and Joplin is slow to index it
• Joplin is busy syncing or loading a large library
• Joplin has frozen — try restarting it

To increase the timeout: add JOPLIN_REQUEST_TIMEOUT=60 to your .env.

ChatGPT project conversations not appearing

Make sure you've added the project IDs to CHATGPT_PROJECT_IDS in your .env. See ChatGPT Projects for how to find them. Project conversations are not included in the default conversation listing — they must be fetched separately.

Schema warnings in logs (Unexpected API response shape)

The provider's internal API may have changed. Run with --debug, sanitize the output (remove any personal content), and check the project's GitHub Issues for known fixes.

Non-text content warnings

Since v0.4.0, rich content is preserved as typed blocks in the export. ChatGPT voice transcripts render as text and audio assets as 📎 File attached placeholders with size and duration metadata. Anything the extractor doesn't recognise renders as a visible > ⚠️ Unsupported content block naming the type and observed keys, and increments a counter in the post-export summary so you can tell whether real content is being silently skipped.

Embedded images and media

Since v0.6.0, image attachments are downloaded by default into a media/ folder beside each export and inlined as ![](media/…). Audio and other files download only with EXPORTER_DOWNLOAD_MEDIA=all. On the next joplin run these are uploaded as Joplin resources so they render inside the note. Assets that have expired on the provider's side (older AI-generated images often do) keep their text placeholder and are tallied as media failed in the run summary — they're never fatal to the export. Set EXPORTER_DOWNLOAD_MEDIA=off to skip downloads entirely.

Tool output / hidden context collapsed

Since v0.6.0, content that was invisible in the ChatGPT web UI is collapsed by default to one-line placeholders like > 🔧 Tool output — file_search (15.0 KB) — omitted. This is ChatGPT's file-retrieval tool re-injecting your attached files on every run — it can be 90% of a conversation's bytes while containing none of the dialogue. Custom Instructions collapse the same way (> ℹ️ Hidden context). The post-export summary lists every collapsed message by origin with the total KB omitted. To keep everything, set EXPORTER_HIDDEN_CONTENT=full in .env or pass --hidden-content full.

Empty export / all conversations skipped

No new or updated conversations since your last run. To verify: ai-chat-exporter cache --show. To force a full re-export: ai-chat-exporter cache --clear.

Filing a bug report

1. Run with --debug: ai-chat-exporter export --debug 2>&1 | tee debug.log
2. Remove any personal conversation content from debug.log
3. Open a GitHub Issue with the sanitized log and the exact command you ran

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Future Work

See FUTURE.md for the full roadmap. Current priorities:

• Watch/scheduled mode on the way to a headless StartOS service

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Security Notes

• All exported data is stored locally only — nothing is sent anywhere except to your local Joplin instance
• Exported files and the cache manifest are created with 600 permissions (owner read/write only)
• .env is in .gitignore — never commit it
• Session tokens are never logged, printed, or included in error messages
• The Joplin API token is only ever sent to localhost — it never leaves your machine
• If you accidentally commit .env: immediately log out and back in to invalidate the token, then remove it from git history using BFG Repo Cleaner or git filter-branch