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How to Migrate Conversations from ChatGPT to Elvean

ChatGPT’s built-in data export gives you a full archive of your conversations. Elvean can read that export and bring every conversation into the app — messages, titles, and timestamps preserved.

Step 1: Export Your ChatGPT Data

  1. Go to chatgpt.com and sign in.
  2. Click your profile picture (bottom-left) → Settings.
  3. Select Data controls from the sidebar.
  4. Under Export data, click Export.
  5. In the confirmation dialog, click Confirm export.

ChatGPT will email you a download link — this can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours depending on how much history you have. The email comes from [email protected] with the subject “Your ChatGPT data export is ready.”

Step 2: Download and Unzip

  1. Click the Download data export link in the email.
  2. You’ll get a .zip file (typically named something like chatdata-2026-06-07.zip).
  3. Unzip it — double-click on macOS, or right-click → Open With → Archive Utility.

The unzipped folder contains several subfolders. Your conversations live in a folder inside User Online Activity — look for a folder prefixed Conversations_ (e.g. Conversations__<hash>-chatgpt-0001). That folder contains your chat history as a set of .json files.

Step 3: Import into Elvean

  1. Open Elvean.
  2. Go to Settings (⌘,) → Data.
  3. Click Import from ChatGPT.
  4. In the file picker, navigate to User Online Activity and select the Conversations_ folder inside it (not the zip itself, not the top-level folder).
  5. Click Import.

Elvean will show a confirmation dialog with how many conversations and messages it found. Click Import to proceed.

What Gets Imported

  • Every conversation with at least one message (empty conversations are skipped).
  • Message content from both you and ChatGPT.
  • Conversation titles and timestamps.
  • Conversations that already exist in Elvean are imported as new (duplicates are not merged).

What Doesn’t Get Imported

  • Image attachments and file uploads (ChatGPT’s export doesn’t include the actual files).
  • GPT Store custom GPT configuration.
  • Voice conversations (audio files are not included in the export).
  • Shared conversation links.

Tips

  • Large exports: If you have thousands of conversations, the import may take a minute or two. Elvean processes everything locally — nothing is sent to any server.
  • Multiple export files: ChatGPT splits large exports across multiple .json files (e.g. conversations-000.json, conversations-001.json). Elvean reads all of them automatically.
  • Organize after import: Imported conversations land in a flat list. Use Elvean’s Projects and Favorites features to organize them afterward.