chatdump

chatdump is a tray-only macOS app that archives your AI chat conversations (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini) into plain Markdown files in a folder you choose. You log in to each provider once inside an embedded browser window; chatdump keeps the resulting session cookies locally and uses them to periodically pull your conversations from each provider's own web API, converting them to Markdown files in a vault folder you choose. There is no dock icon or main window — everything is driven from the menu bar.

Every conversation lands as its own file, organized by provider and account, so your vault fills up into a browsable archive:

Vault/
├── chatgpt/alex@example.com/
│   ├── 2026-07-06_Kyoto_3-day_itinerary_8f3a2c1d.md
│   ├── 2026-07-04_Regex_lookbehind_help_c41b9e02.md
│   └── assets/<conversation-id>/<asset-id>.png
├── claude/alex@example.com/
│   └── 2026-07-05_Sourdough_starter_rescue_a7d02e55.md
├── gemini/alex@example.com/
│   └── 2026-07-01_Trip_photo_captions_3b8cf104.md
└── .chatdump/cache/…

Features

• Multiple accounts per provider — add as many Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini accounts as you like; each is tracked separately by provider + email.
• Per-account sync window (ChatGPT) — choose how far back "Sync Now" looks (1 / 7 / 30 / 90 days, default 30) from each ChatGPT account's submenu.
• Auto-sync interval — a global background sync runs on a schedule you pick (every 30 min / 1h / 3h (default) / 6h / 12h / 24h).
• Full sync (ChatGPT) — an opt-in, one-shot pass that walks every conversation in a chosen order (by creation date or by last message time) to fully re-sort the chatgpt.com sidebar. Slower than a normal sync.
• Markdown + raw JSON cache output — each conversation is written to {vault}/{provider}/{account}/{date}_{title}_{id}.md with YAML frontmatter, and the provider's raw API response is cached alongside it at {vault}/.chatdump/cache/{provider}/{account}/{id}.json ({provider} is claude, chatgpt, or gemini).
• Offline ChatGPT images — uploaded and generated images are downloaded to the account's assets/<conversation-id>/ folder and embedded with relative Markdown links instead of expiring remote URLs.
• Menu bar controls — per account: Sync Now / Stop Syncing, set a per-account vault or use the default, open the vault in Finder, toggle auto-sync, view recent activity, re-login, or remove the account. Globally: Sync All Now, the auto-sync interval, the default vault, and Add Account.

Install

Download the latest signed and notarized DMG from GitHub Releases, open it, and drag chatdump to Applications.

To run from source instead:

git clone https://github.com/combinatrix-ai/chatdump.git
cd chatdump
npm install
npm start

Getting started

1. Click the chatdump icon in the menu bar and choose Add Account..., then pick a provider (Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini).
2. A login window opens for that provider. Sign in as usual; the window closes itself once chatdump detects a valid session cookie.
3. The account appears in the menu right away and a first sync starts automatically. To change where its Markdown files go, use Set Vault Path... on the account's submenu, or leave it on the default vault (created at ~/chatdump the first time chatdump runs, or set your own via Set Default Vault...).
4. Use Sync Now on an account, or Sync All Now at the bottom of the menu, to sync on demand. Auto-sync also runs in the background on the configured interval.

CLI

The packaged app can also run as a command-line tool, using the same configured accounts and login sessions as the tray app (it does not open login windows — re-login from the menu bar app if a session has expired).

chatdump offers to install a chatdump command onto your PATH the first time you launch it, and you can trigger the same install any time from the menu bar (Install Command Line Tool…). Once installed, chatdump cli <command> works directly from any terminal, and MCP clients can be configured with "command": "chatdump", "args": ["cli", "mcp"] instead of the full app path. This is unavailable in the Mac App Store build.

If you'd rather not install it (or are on the Mac App Store build), call the binary inside the app bundle directly:

/Applications/chatdump.app/Contents/MacOS/chatdump cli <command> [options]

Commands:

• help — print usage.
• list (alias accounts) — list configured accounts and their sync status. Add --json for machine-readable output.
• sync — sync selected accounts. Options: --all, --include-disabled, --account <id> (repeatable), --provider <name>, --since-days <days>, --full-sync <created_at|last_message_at>, --json.
• fetch <url-or-id> — fetch one provider conversation id, chatgpt.com/c/<id> URL, or public chatgpt.com/share/<id> link. Options: --account <id>, --provider <name>, --json.
• mcp — start the stdio MCP server (see below).

Examples:

/Applications/chatdump.app/Contents/MacOS/chatdump cli list
/Applications/chatdump.app/Contents/MacOS/chatdump cli sync --all
/Applications/chatdump.app/Contents/MacOS/chatdump cli sync \
  --account openai:user@example.com --since-days 7
/Applications/chatdump.app/Contents/MacOS/chatdump cli fetch \
  https://chatgpt.com/share/abc123

When running from source, use npm run cli -- <command> [options].

MCP Server

chatdump can run as a stdio MCP server for local agents, reusing the app's configured accounts and persisted login sessions. It does not open provider login windows; re-login from the menu bar app if auth expired.

Full reference: docs/cli.md and docs/mcp.md. How the providers work internally lives under docs/internals/.

Project-scoped MCP client example, pointing at the packaged app:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "chatdump": {
      "command": "/Applications/chatdump.app/Contents/MacOS/chatdump",
      "args": ["cli", "mcp"]
    }
  }
}

When running from source, use npm run mcp (equivalent to electron . cli mcp) instead of the packaged binary.

The server exposes four tools:

• ask — ask a question through chatdump's persisted browser session. It currently supports ChatGPT accounts and returns answer, conversationId, url, accountId, and provider.
• conversation — fetch a full conversation as Markdown. Accepts a provider conversation id, a chatgpt.com/c/<id> URL, or a public chatgpt.com/share/<id> link. Share links are read through ChatGPT's public share endpoint, so they resolve even for conversations the signed-in account does not own. Returns the provider raw JSON too when includeRaw is true.
• accounts — list configured accounts and sync status.
• sync — sync selected accounts to their configured folders.

It also exposes the chatdump://accounts resource for configured accounts as JSON.

Typical MCP flow:

{
  "tool": "ask",
  "arguments": {
    "accountId": "openai:user@example.com",
    "prompt": "Review this design and point out the main risks.",
    "timeoutMs": 240000
  }
}

Then pass the returned conversationId to fetch the full transcript:

{
  "tool": "conversation",
  "arguments": {
    "accountId": "openai:user@example.com",
    "conversationId": "123e4567-e89b-42d3-a456-426614174002"
  }
}

Or fetch a shared conversation straight from its link — no id lookup needed:

{
  "tool": "conversation",
  "arguments": {
    "conversationId": "https://chatgpt.com/share/123e4567-e89b-42d3-a456-426614174002"
  }
}

Privacy / how it works

• All data stays on your machine — Markdown files and the raw JSON cache are written only into the vault folder you choose.
• "Logging in" stores your provider session cookies in an isolated Electron session partition per account, on disk under chatdump's app data directory. chatdump never sees or stores your password.
• There is no chatdump backend or external server. Syncing works by calling each provider's own internal web API (the same one their website uses) with your session cookie, on your behalf, to fetch your own conversations.

Development

npm install
npm start

npm test        # node --test test/
npm run lint     # biome check src test
npm run knip     # find unused files/exports/dependencies

electron-store is pinned to 8.x because 9+ is ESM-only and this codebase is CommonJS.

Release (macOS)

Tag a version and CI handles the rest:

git tag v1.0.1
git push origin v1.0.1

GitHub Actions builds a universal binary, signs with the Developer ID cert, notarizes via Apple, staples, and attaches the DMG + zip to a GitHub Release.

For local builds, the one-time CI setup, or troubleshooting see docs/release.md.

For Mac App Store packaging and submission, see docs/mas-release.md.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.