How do you export ChatGPT to Markdown?

[quysala147258]

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I often use ChatGPT for coding and research, and sometimes want to save useful conversations as Markdown for documentation.

Copying manually works for short chats, but longer conversations can break code blocks, tables, headings, or lists.

What’s your preferred ChatGPT to Markdown workflow? Is there any open-source GitHub repo or other solution you actually trust for this?

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[nirav-gajera]

For single conversations I use a bookmarklet, for bulk export I go through OpenAI's own data export + a script.

Single conversation, quick:
yaph/chatgpt-export — a browser bookmarklet, no install, drag it to your bookmarks bar and click it on any open ChatGPT conversation. Handles code blocks and headings properly instead of the copy-paste formatting mess you get from manual copying.

Bulk export, all your history:

1. In ChatGPT: Settings → Data Controls → Export Data. You'll get a zip with a conversations.json containing everything.
2. Run that JSON through daugaard47/ChatGPT_Conversations_To_Markdown — it turns each conversation into its own clean .md file, keeps code blocks/images/attachments, and there's a browser-only version (no Python needed) if you'd rather not touch the terminal. Everything runs locally, nothing gets uploaded anywhere.

Both are small, readable open-source repos, worth skimming the source before running like anything else you didn't write yourself, but they're straightforward and do exactly what they say — no giant framework, no account needed.

I haven't found anything that reliably keeps tables/code blocks/lists intact through plain copy-paste for long chats — that's really a client-side rendering issue on ChatGPT's end, not something you can work around without exporting the underlying data.

[quysala147258]

Thank you

[john260104]

I’d use 3 different approaches depending on the situation:

1. For short conversations, just ask ChatGPT to create a Markdown file. This usually works well enough.
2. For longer chats, a browser extension is easier. I found AI Chat Exporter by Backrun, which can export either the full ChatGPT conversation or selected messages directly to Markdown. You can give it a try.
3. If you prefer an open-source option, there’s also pionxzh/chatgpt-exporter. It has around 2.7k stars on GitHub, although I haven’t tried it myself yet.

[quysala147258]

Thanks! One more question: does the extension preserve formatting like code blocks, headings and links? And do you know if it’s safe to use with private conversations?

[john260104]

Yes! It preserves the original formatting, including headings, lists, code blocks, tables, links, and other structured content when exporting.

According to the developer’s description, your conversation data is not sent to or collected by them.

Also, Chrome extensions generally go through Google’s review process before being published on the Chrome Web Store. That said, if you’re working with highly sensitive or confidential conversations, it’s still a good idea to review the extension’s permissions and privacy policy before using it.

[pionxzh]

Thanks for mentioning my script. pionxzh/chatgpt-exporter preserves all the formatting and even thinking(optional). It's open source and runs entirely on your machine, so you can use it for any confidential conversations. We also recently added support for temporary chats. You can even export multiple conversations with a few clicks.