Import from ChatGPT and Claude

You can move your conversation history from ChatGPT and Claude into MindDuck and search it together with new chats. No model is needed for this, and nothing leaves the device.

Importing needs you to be signed in in Settings → Account with active access to MindDuck. The archive's content isn't sent to the account site. See Account.

1. Request the archive

This step can't be automated: no service has an API for exporting your own history.

• ChatGPT: Settings → Data Controls → Export data.
• Claude: Settings → Privacy → Export data.

If the mobile app has no export, request it in the browser.

2. Download the archive

The service sends an email with a link, usually within 20 to 30 minutes. Large accounts take longer. The link works for 24 hours, so download the file in time.

3. Import

1. Drag the downloaded .zip onto the import screen or click Choose archive. You don't need to unpack it. A single conversations.json file works too.
2. MindDuck reads the archive and shows what's in it: how many conversations, messages, images and files, for what period, and roughly how long indexing will take.
3. Choose Import everything or Last year only.
4. Keep the app open until the import ends. You can stop it with Stop after current batch.

What comes over

• conversations and messages;
• images and files, if the archive has them. They are stored on the device, encrypted;
• AI-generated images return to the assistant's answers if the archive contains them;
• text is extracted from PDFs for search. PDFs without a text layer (scans) are marked as needing OCR.

An imported chat is marked with its source: Imported from ChatGPT or Imported from Claude.

Images from the archive aren't described automatically, because that costs money. Describing is started manually, see Image descriptions.

Importing again

The same archive imported again adds only what's new: messages already brought over are skipped. You can export a fresh archive every few months and import it again.

If an import was stopped, start it again and it continues from where it ended.

After the import

Chats can be found by title right away. Search by meaning is completed in the background, starting with newer conversations. You can follow it in Background tasks. See Local search index.

For imported chats it's useful to run topic analysis: Analyze chat topics on the context panel. See Context panel.

Importing on a phone

You can import on a phone too, but a large archive will keep the device busy for a long time and drain the battery: MindDuck warns you about it (This will take a while on a phone). It's easier to import on a computer and let the data reach the phone through sync.

Messages

• No importable conversations found in this archive: the archive is empty or the service's export failed. Request the archive again.
• Import could not finish: read the reason and click Try again. What was already imported isn't lost and won't be added twice.