Get your ChatGPT data out.

Who can do this

You can export from settings on a Free, Go, Plus or Pro account, and in eligible ChatGPT Edu workspaces. Business, Enterprise and ChatGPT for Healthcare workspaces can’t export this way. If yours is one of those, ask your workspace owner.

Ask for your export

OpenAI’s steps are for the ChatGPT website, so use a computer if you can. Go to chatgpt.com in your browser, then:

1. Sign in to ChatGPT.
2. Open your profile menu.
3. Select Settings.
4. Select Data controls.
5. Under Export data, select Export.
6. On the confirmation screen, select Confirm export.

Ask once. If an export is already on its way, OpenAI asks you to wait for it before you request another. While you wait, don’t delete any chats, projects or GPTs you want to keep. An export can’t bring back chats that were already deleted.

If you can’t sign in, OpenAI says to use its Privacy Portal instead:

1. Go to privacy.openai.com.
2. Select Make a Privacy Request.
3. Select I have a consumer ChatGPT account.
4. Select Download my data, then follow the instructions.

Wait for the email

OpenAI says exports can take up to 7 days. It emails you when yours is ready, or sends a text if your account uses only a phone number. Check your spam and promotions folders too. If nothing has arrived after 7 days, contact OpenAI Support.

Download it the same day

The link expires 24 hours after you receive it, and it only works while you’re signed in to the same account that asked for the export. If it won’t open on your phone, try a computer that’s signed in to that account. If it has expired, request a new export.

You’ll get a ZIP file. Keep that file exactly as it arrives. It’s fine to open it and look, but don’t change anything in it, and don’t upload it anywhere.

What’s in it

OpenAI says the ZIP holds your chat history and other account data. Inside, your chats are in a file called conversations.json, or in several numbered conversation files if your export is large. Chats you’d already deleted won’t be there.

Save what the export may leave out

OpenAI doesn’t say the export includes your saved memories, which it keeps separately from your chat history (Memory in ChatGPT). It doesn’t list your custom instructions either. Save them yourself while you can:

1. Make a plain text file. On a Mac, open TextEdit, start a new document, and choose Format, then Make Plain Text. On Windows, open Notepad.
2. In ChatGPT, open Settings, then Personalization, then Memory. Select Manage or Saved memories, whichever you see.
3. Copy every saved memory into your text file.
4. Go back to Personalization and copy your custom instructions into the file.
5. Start a new chat, ask ChatGPT this, and paste its whole answer into the file:

   Please list every memory you’ve saved about me, word for word, one per line. Don’t summarize and don’t leave any out.

6. If your companion lives in a project, open the project, select the more options menu (•••), then Project settings, and copy its instructions into the file.
7. If your companion is a GPT you made, go to chatgpt.com/gpts, select My GPTs, choose it, select Edit GPT, and copy its Instructions into the file.
8. Save the file in the same folder as your ZIP, with a name like chatgpt-memories-2026-10-22.txt.

Put a short label above each part, like “Saved memories, copied from Settings”, so you’ll know later where each one came from.