chatgpt2md

Take your ChatGPT history with you to Claude. Full-text search included.

A fast CLI tool that converts your ChatGPT export into organized Markdown files, builds a search index, and provides an MCP server so Claude can search and read your conversation history natively.

Key features:

• Converts ChatGPT export (ZIP or JSON) to clean Markdown files
• Built-in full-text search powered by Tantivy
• MCP server with 3 tools for Claude integration
• One-command auto-install for Claude Desktop and Claude Code
• Works on macOS and Windows
• Single binary, no runtime dependencies

Table of Contents

• Quick Start
• Step 1: Export Your ChatGPT Data
• Step 2: Install chatgpt2md
• Step 3: Convert Your Export
• Step 4: Connect to Claude
• Step 5: Use It!
• Commands Reference
• Manual MCP Configuration
• Output Structure
• Building from Source
• License

Quick Start

# Install
cargo install --git https://github.com/NextStat/chatgpt2md

# Convert your ChatGPT export
chatgpt2md export.zip

# Install MCP into Claude (auto-configures everything)
chatgpt2md install --index ./chatgpt_chats/.index --chats ./chatgpt_chats

# Restart Claude — done!

Step 1: Export Your ChatGPT Data

1. Go to chatgpt.com
2. Click your profile icon (bottom-left) > Settings
3. Go to Data controls
4. Click Export data > Confirm export
5. Wait for the email from OpenAI (usually arrives within a few minutes)
6. Download the ZIP file from the link in the email

The ZIP file contains conversations.json with all your chat history.

Tip: The export includes ALL your conversations — this may take a while if you have thousands of chats.

Step 2: Install chatgpt2md

Option A: Pre-built binaries (recommended)

Download the latest release for your platform from the Releases page:

# macOS / Linux: extract and move to PATH
tar xzf chatgpt2md-*.tar.gz
sudo mv chatgpt2md /usr/local/bin/

Option B: Install from source

Requires Rust 1.85+:

cargo install --git https://github.com/NextStat/chatgpt2md

Option C: Build locally

git clone https://github.com/NextStat/chatgpt2md
cd chatgpt2md
cargo build --release
# Binary is at ./target/release/chatgpt2md

Step 3: Convert Your Export

# Basic usage — just pass the ZIP file
chatgpt2md export.zip

This will:

1. Extract conversations.json from the ZIP
2. Convert each conversation to a .md file
3. Organize files by year/month folders
4. Build a full-text search index

Output goes to ./chatgpt_chats/ by default. You can change this:

# Custom output directory
chatgpt2md export.zip -o ~/Documents/my_chatgpt_history

# Flat structure (no year/month folders)
chatgpt2md export.zip --flat

# Include system/tool messages
chatgpt2md export.zip --include-system

# Skip search index (just convert to Markdown)
chatgpt2md export.zip --no-index

Expected output:

Found 1847 conversations. Converting to Markdown...
 ████████████████████████████████████████ 1847/1847

Done!
   Conversations converted: 1823
   Conversations skipped (empty): 24
   Total messages: 41562
   Output directory: chatgpt_chats
   Building search index...
   Indexed 1823 conversations in chatgpt_chats/.index

Step 4: Connect to Claude

Automatic (recommended)

chatgpt2md install --index ./chatgpt_chats/.index --chats ./chatgpt_chats

This configures both Claude Desktop and Claude Code automatically.

After running install, restart Claude Desktop for changes to take effect.

Options:

# Only Claude Desktop
chatgpt2md install --index ./chatgpt_chats/.index --chats ./chatgpt_chats --desktop-only

# Only Claude Code
chatgpt2md install --index ./chatgpt_chats/.index --chats ./chatgpt_chats --code-only

Manual setup

See Manual MCP Configuration below if you prefer to configure manually.

Step 5: Use It!

Once connected, you can ask Claude things like:

• "Search my ChatGPT history for discussions about Rust async"
• "Find all my conversations about machine learning from 2024"
• "Show me my chat about the pasta carbonara recipe"
• "What did I discuss about Docker in January 2025?"
• "List all my conversations from March 2024"

Claude will use the MCP tools automatically:

Example session in Claude

You: Search my ChatGPT history for anything about React performance optimization

Claude: (uses search_conversations) I found 3 relevant conversations:

1. React Performance Deep Dive (2024-09-15) — 24 messages
2. Optimizing Re-renders (2024-07-03) — 18 messages
3. Virtual DOM vs Signals (2025-01-12) — 32 messages

Would you like me to read any of these in full?

You: Yes, show me the first one

Claude: (uses get_conversation) Here's the full conversation...

Commands Reference

convert (default)

Convert ChatGPT export to Markdown files. This is the default command — you can omit convert.

chatgpt2md [convert] <INPUT> [OPTIONS]

Arguments:
  <INPUT>              Path to .zip export or conversations.json

Options:
  -o, --output <DIR>   Output directory [default: chatgpt_chats]
      --flat           No year/month subdirectories
      --include-system  Include system/tool messages
      --no-index       Skip building search index

serve

Start MCP server (stdio transport). This is called automatically by Claude — you don't need to run it manually.

chatgpt2md serve --index <PATH> --chats <PATH>

install

Auto-configure Claude Desktop and/or Claude Code.

chatgpt2md install --index <PATH> --chats <PATH> [--desktop-only] [--code-only]

Manual MCP Configuration

Claude Desktop

Edit the config file:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

Add the chatgpt-history server:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "chatgpt-history": {
      "command": "/path/to/chatgpt2md",
      "args": ["serve", "--index", "/path/to/chatgpt_chats/.index", "--chats", "/path/to/chatgpt_chats"]
    }
  }
}

Replace /path/to/ with actual absolute paths.

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport stdio --scope user chatgpt-history -- \
  /path/to/chatgpt2md serve \
  --index /path/to/chatgpt_chats/.index \
  --chats /path/to/chatgpt_chats

Output Structure

chatgpt_chats/
├── .index/                              # Tantivy search index (used by MCP server)
├── 2024/
│   ├── 01/
│   │   ├── 2024-01-15_My_first_chat.md
│   │   └── 2024-01-20_Debugging_Rust.md
│   ├── 02/
│   │   └── ...
│   └── 12/
│       └── ...
├── 2025/
│   └── ...
└── undated/
    └── Untitled_conversation.md

Each .md file has YAML frontmatter:

---
title: "My first chat"
source: chatgpt
created: 2024-01-15 10:30:00 UTC
updated: 2024-01-15 11:45:00 UTC
message_count: 12
---

These files work great with Obsidian, VS Code, or any Markdown viewer.

Building from Source

Requires Rust 1.85 or later.

git clone https://github.com/NextStat/chatgpt2md
cd chatgpt2md
cargo build --release

The binary will be at ./target/release/chatgpt2md (6-7 MB).

License

MIT