ChatExtract

Extract chat sessions from OpenAI data exports by date and optionally by keyword.

Overview

ChatExtract is a command-line tool that helps you:

1. View all unique dates with conversation counts from your ChatGPT export
2. Extract conversations from a specific date, optionally filtered by keyword in the title
3. Generate both JSON and human-readable HTML outputs with markdown rendering

Installation

Option 1: Using conda (recommended for conda users)

conda env create -f environment.yml
conda activate chatextract

Option 2: Using pip and venv

python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate  # On Windows: venv\Scripts\activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Usage

List all dates

python chat_extract.py data/Charlie-1

This displays:

• All unique dates with conversation counts
• Sample conversation titles from each date

Extract conversations from a specific date

python chat_extract.py data/Charlie-1 -d 2025-10-21

This extracts all conversations from that date to extracted/Charlie-1/ with:

• conversations.json - Filtered conversations in JSON format
• chat.html - Human-readable HTML version of the filtered conversations

Filter by keyword in title

python chat_extract.py data/Charlie-1 -d 2025-10-21 -k "python"

This extracts only conversations from that date where "python" appears in the title (case-insensitive).

OpenAI Data Export

To get your conversations.json file:

1. Go to ChatGPT Settings → Data Controls
2. Click "Export data"
3. Wait for the email with your data archive
4. Extract the archive and locate the conversations.json file

Examples

# List all dates with conversation counts
python chat_extract.py data/Charlie-1

# Extract all conversations from October 21, 2025
python chat_extract.py data/Charlie-1 -d 2025-10-21

# Extract only conversations with "python" in the title from that date
python chat_extract.py data/Charlie-1 -d 2025-10-21 -k "python"

# Process a different export
python chat_extract.py data/Another-Export -d 2025-09-15

Folder Structure

ChatExtract/
├── data/
│   └── Charlie-1/              # Your OpenAI export (renamed)
│       ├── conversations.json
│       ├── chat.html
│       └── ...
├── extracted/
│   └── Charlie-1/              # Output folder (created by tool)
│       ├── conversations.json  # Filtered conversations (JSON)
│       └── chat.html          # Filtered conversations (HTML)
├── chat_extract.py
└── README.md

Requirements

• Python 3.8+
• See requirements.txt for package dependencies

License

MIT