ai-chatexport/FUTURE.md

Planned Future Work

These items are explicitly out of scope for v0.1.0 but have been designed for. The codebase is structured to make each of these additions straightforward.

Export --force Flag (v0.1.x)

Add --force to the export command to re-export already-cached conversations without permanently clearing the entire manifest. Useful for re-generating files after changing the Markdown template or output structure.

Implementation: pass a force=True flag to cache.get_new_or_updated(), which returns all conversations regardless of cache state when force is True.

Current workaround: python -m src.main cache --clear then re-run export.

Joplin Integration (v0.2.0)

Automate importing exported Markdown files into Joplin as new notes. Joplin exposes a local REST API (requires Joplin desktop running with Web Clipper enabled).

Approach: after export, iterate exported files and POST each to http://localhost:41184/notes with the appropriate notebook ID.

The output folder structure maps directly to Joplin notebooks:

• exports/chatgpt/my-project/ → Joplin notebook "ChatGPT - My Project"
• exports/claude/my-project/ → Joplin notebook "Claude - My Project"
• exports/chatgpt/no-project/ → Joplin notebook "ChatGPT - No Project"
• exports/claude/no-project/ → Joplin notebook "Claude - No Project"

Prerequisites:

• Joplin desktop must be running with Web Clipper enabled
• JOPLIN_API_TOKEN env var (get from Joplin → Tools → Web Clipper Options)
• The Joplin import script will need to create notebooks if they don't exist, then POST each note into the correct notebook

Note: The default OUTPUT_STRUCTURE of provider/project/year is assumed when implementing the import script. If the user has changed OUTPUT_STRUCTURE, the import script will need updating accordingly.

Official API Migration (v0.3.0)

If the unofficial internal web API approach breaks, migrate to official export file parsing as a fallback:

• ChatGPT: parse conversations.json from Settings → Export Data
• Claude: parse conversations.json from Settings → Privacy → Export Data

The BaseProvider abstract class is intentionally designed so that a FileProvider subclass can implement the same interface (list_conversations, get_conversation, normalize_conversation) without any changes to cache, exporters, or CLI code.

To add this: implement src/providers/file_chatgpt.py and src/providers/file_claude.py, then add --input-file flag to the export command to accept a pre-downloaded export ZIP or JSON.

Rich Content Support (v0.4.0)

Currently only text content is exported. Future versions should handle:

Claude

• Artifacts (code, documents, HTML) — export as separate files, link from Markdown
• Uploaded images — download and embed or link
• Extended thinking/reasoning blocks — include as collapsible sections
• Tool call results and web search citations — include as footnotes or appendices

ChatGPT

• DALL-E generated images — download and embed or link
• Code Interpreter outputs — export code and results
• File attachments — download and reference
• Voice transcripts — include as text

Implementation note: the normalized message schema already includes a content_type field placeholder. When this work begins, extend the schema rather than replacing it. In v0.1.0, log a WARNING whenever non-text content is encountered so users know what was skipped.