Chatgpt Chat Export

chatgpt-chat-export

ChatGPT's web UI has no full-fidelity export (Settings → Export mails a zip of everything, hours later). But the page itself talks to /backend-api/conversation/{id}, which returns the complete conversation as JSON — including edit branches, tool calls, reasoning scaffolding, and attachment references. This skill grabs that JSON plus every attachment from an authenticated Chrome session, and converts it to Markdown.

Output convention (one folder per conversation, named by UUID):

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<project>/chat-exports/<conversation-uuid>/
├── conversation.json   ← raw /backend-api/conversation response, full fidelity
├── conversation.md     ← readable transcript (chatgpt2md.py)
├── FILES.md            ← attachment index: file id → name → local path
└── files/              ← binaries, by original filename

Workflow

Four stages: grab JSON → grab attachments → organize → convert. Two transport paths for the "grab" stages, depending on who drives the browser:

• DevTools console (user runs snippets manually): Blob + <a download> clicks land in ~/Downloads. Simple, but Chrome blocks the 2nd+ programmatic download per tab — use a fresh tab per download, or bundle everything into one zip.
• claude-in-chrome MCP (agent drives): a.click() downloads don't land on disk, javascript_tool results truncate at ~1000 chars, and the extension's DLP filter replaces JWT-shaped / base64 / query-string / long-uniform output with [BLOCKED: …]. Transport out via clipboard (primary — needs no network) or the bundled scripts/relay_server.py (blocked by uBlock's LAN-protection on some setups; see below).

Iron rule for the MCP path: never return the access token or a payload from javascript_tool. Stash everything in window.* and return only metadata (status, length, count).

1. Grab the conversation JSON

Conversation UUID comes from the URL: chatgpt.com/c/<uuid>. Open that page (logged in), then:

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// In-page: token + conversation -> window.__conv. Returns only metadata.
const sess = await fetch('/api/auth/session').then(r => r.json());
window.__tok = sess.accessToken;
const CONV = '<conversation-uuid>';
window.__conv = await fetch('/backend-api/conversation/' + CONV,
  {headers: {Authorization: 'Bearer ' + window.__tok}}).then(r => r.json());
JSON.stringify({title: window.__conv.title, nodes: Object.keys(window.__conv.mapping || {}).length});

Transport — clipboard (MCP path). navigator.clipboard.writeText requires document focus and a user gesture, which javascript_tool doesn't have. Inject a full-page button and click it with the computer tool:

jsCopy code
document.body.innerHTML = '<button id="copybtn" style="position:fixed;inset:0;width:100vw;height:100vh;font-size:40px">COPY</button><div id="st" style="position:fixed;bottom:0;left:0;background:#000;color:#0f0;padding:8px;z-index:9">waiting</div>';
window.__payload = JSON.stringify(window.__conv);
document.getElementById('copybtn').addEventListener('click', async () => {
  try { await navigator.clipboard.writeText(window.__payload);
        document.getElementById('st').textContent = 'COPIED ' + window.__payload.length; }
  catch (e) { document.getElementById('st').textContent = 'ERR ' + e.message; }
});
'ready';

Then: computer left_click anywhere on the page → verify via document.getElementById('st').textContent → on the shell side:

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pbpaste > chat-exports/<uuid>/conversation.json
python3 -c "import json; d=json.load(open('chat-exports/<uuid>/conversation.json')); print(d['title'], len(d['mapping']))"

Clipboard handles ~10 MB fine. Clear it afterwards (printf '' | pbcopy) — and warn the user their clipboard was overwritten.

Transport — console download (manual path):

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const blob = new Blob([JSON.stringify(window.__conv)], {type: 'application/json'});
const a = document.createElement('a'); a.href = URL.createObjectURL(blob);
a.download = 'conversation.json'; a.click();

2. Grab the attachments

Attachment references live in two places in the JSON:

• mapping[*].message.metadata.attachments[] → {id, name, mime_type, size} (user uploads: images, PDFs)
• image parts' content.parts[*].asset_pointer → sediment://file_… (same files, by pointer)

Resolve each id to a download URL in-page:

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GET /backend-api/conversation/{conv-id}/attachment/{file-id}/download   (Bearer auth)
→ {download_url, file_name, mime_type, file_size_bytes}

The download_url is NOT a signed CDN link — it's chatgpt.com/backend-api/estuary/content?id=…, which needs the browser's auth. curl from outside fails (exit 56). So fetch the bytes in-page and bundle them:

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// window.__files = [{id, name}] built from window.__conv (dedupe by id first)
const toB64 = (blob) => new Promise((res, rej) => {
  const fr = new FileReader();
  fr.onload = () => res(fr.result.split(',')[1]); fr.onerror = rej;
  fr.readAsDataURL(blob);
});
const CONV = '<conversation-uuid>';
const bundle = {};
for (const f of window.__files) {
  const meta = await fetch('/backend-api/conversation/' + CONV + '/attachment/' + f.id + '/download',
    {headers: {Authorization: 'Bearer ' + window.__tok}}).then(r => r.json());
  const blob = await fetch(meta.download_url, {headers: {Authorization: 'Bearer ' + window.__tok}}).then(r => r.blob());
  bundle[f.name || f.id] = await toB64(blob);
}
window.__payload = JSON.stringify(bundle);
'bundled ' + Object.keys(bundle).length + ' files, ' + window.__payload.length + ' chars';

Then reuse the same copy button (it copies window.__payload), click, and unpack:

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python3 <skill-dir>/scripts/unpack_clipboard.py chat-exports/<uuid>/files/

On the manual console path, zip the bundle client-side instead (JSZip from CDN, one <a download> click for the whole zip — sidesteps the multi-download block; see the sibling claude-desktop-chat-export skill for the JSZip snippet).

Known 403: PDF page-preview pointers of the form sediment://<hash>#file_…#p_N.jpg (tool-rendered page images) are not downloadable — skip them; the source PDF itself downloads fine via its plain file_… id.

3. Convert to Markdown

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python3 <skill-dir>/scripts/chatgpt2md.py chat-exports/<uuid>/conversation.json
# → conversation.md + FILES.md next to the JSON; images/PDFs linked into files/

The converter walks the canonical branch only (current_node → .parent → root — the mapping is a tree with edit branches, not a list), keeps only visible turns (user × text|multimodal_text, assistant × text with recipient == 'all'), and drops internal scaffolding (thoughts, code/web.run tool calls, reasoning_recap, hidden system messages). ChatGPT embeds citation markers as private-use-area Unicode (… around citeturn0search1-style tokens) — these are stripped, as are leftover products{…} carousel blobs. Flags: --user-name, --files-dir, --out, --no-files-md.

Note: the generic ai-conversation-extractor skill does not handle this mapping-tree format — use this converter for chatgpt.com JSON.

Gotchas (hard-won)

• MCP output filter: results truncate ~1000 chars; JWT/base64/query-string/long-uniform text → [BLOCKED: …]. Even 'x'.repeat(30000) triggers the base64 heuristic. Route data through window.* + clipboard/relay/download, never through tool results.
• uBlock Origin (Lite) LAN-block: page fetches from chatgpt.com to http://127.0.0.1:* throw Failed to fetch (stack shows uBlock's fetch wrapper). This kills the relay transport — clipboard is the reliable default. (scripts/relay_server.py is bundled for setups without uBlock.)
• Clipboard needs focus + gesture: writeText from bare javascript_tool fails with NotAllowedError: Document is not focused — hence the injected button + real computer click.
• Chrome multi-download guard (manual path): the 2nd+ programmatic a.click() download in a tab silently does nothing. Fresh tab per download (reload is NOT enough), or one zip.
• get_page_text fallback for text-only payloads: inject <pre> chunks (~45k chars each) into the DOM and read them back — works, but costs one round-trip per chunk and floods agent context; last resort.
• Wiping the DOM is safe: document.body.innerHTML = … on the conversation page doesn't touch window.__conv / window.__tok, and auth cookies keep working for in-page fetches.

Requirements

• Chrome logged into chatgpt.com; for the MCP path, the claude-in-chrome extension.
• No external Python dependencies — stdlib only (Python 3.9+).
• Clipboard shell access: pbpaste/pbcopy (macOS) or xclip/wl-paste (Linux, use --stdin on the unpacker).