Moving from ChatGPT to Claude: take your best chats with you

Switching AIs doesn't mean starting from zero. Most people only need a handful of chats: the project plan, the long research thread, the prompt that finally worked.

Why not export everything?

ChatGPT's own export (Settings → Data controls → Export data) gives you one zip of your whole history. That's useful as a backup. It's hard to use as a starting point in Claude, because you'd have to dig out the few chats you care about first.

Pick your most important chats

Before you export anything, list the 3 conversations you'd hate to lose. Good candidates are ongoing projects, chats with decisions you'll need to look up, and long threads where you gave a lot of background.

Export them one at a time

1. Install the AIChatExport Chrome extension and sign in to a free account at aichatexport.xyz.
2. Open one of the ChatGPT conversations on your list.
3. Click the extension, then Export Conversation.
4. The chat opens on aichatexport.xyz. Download it as a PDF or TXT file (Markdown on Pro).
5. Repeat for the next chat.

Images show as a placeholder. The extension sends the chat to our server to build your file.

Export this chat now →Free Chrome extension

Give the files to Claude

Start a new Claude chat and attach the file. Then tell Claude what it is, for example: "This is my earlier conversation about the product launch. Read it, then help me pick up where it left off." If you use Claude Projects, add the files to the project so every chat in it can use them.

A text file is usually the better choice here. It's smaller, and Claude reads it as plain text.

What it costs

A free account includes 3 TXT exports and 1 PDF export a month, with a watermark. That covers three chats as text files. Pro ($5/month) gives unlimited TXT, 500 PDFs a month, Markdown and no watermark, if you're moving more.