[phernandez]

PSA: Export your ChatGPT conversations before cancelling If you're thinking about cancelling (or switching to Claude/Gemini), don't lose months of conversations first.

I built Basic Memory — it imports your ChatGPT export and turns it into plain Markdown files. Every conversation becomes a file you can actually read, search, and use with whatever AI you switch to.

This is not an ad. It is free and open source. Your data belongs to you. Keep it.

Steps:

1. Settings → Data Controls → Export Data (ChatGPT emails you a zip)

2. Install Basic Memory (brew tap basicmachines-co/basic-memory && brew install basic-memory)

bm import chatgpt conversations.zip

Complete docs: http://docs.basicmemory.com

[ray_v]

I suspect that the export feature is going to be "broken" for a good long while; I've been waiting for mine since 8 am ... a little over 5 hours now.

[hn_throwaway_99]

It took exactly 24 hours, to the minute, from the time I received the "we're generating an export" file until I got the download link, so guessing they're either batching it or deliberately sending after 24 hours because it adds friction to the account deletion process.

[ray_v]

it's funny, because that was basically my experience as well lol.

... and now the login/logout endpoints are broken for Claude this morning, because of course they are!

https://status.claude.com/incidents/0ghc53zpsfmt