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Show HN: I lost 3 years of ChatGPT history overnight, so I built a backup tool

4 points by benjushi ↗ HN
One month ago, OpenAI deactivated my ChatGPT account without warning. 3+ years of conversations—gone.

I tried everything. Emailed every OpenAI address I could find. Their response? "Use our data export tool." The catch? You need an active account to export your data.

Classic.

So I built a browser extension that lets me save any conversation from ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini with one click. Markdown format, stored in one place.

Turns out it solved another problem I didn't expect: I often ask the same question to all three AIs, then forget which one gave me the best answer. Now they're all in one place.

It's been my personal tool for now. Nothing fancy—just scratching my own itch. If there's interest, I'll consider publishing it. Could easily extend to other AI assistants too.

Anyone else paranoid about their AI chat history now?

5 comments

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benjushi
I’ve been reading HN daily for four years, but I rarely post—only when I genuinely have a question I can’t figure out on my own. I recently built this side project but wasn’t sure if anyone else actually needed it, or whether it was worth launching. I figured if there’s anywhere on the internet where people could answer that question, it’s here. So I posted.

Got nothing. Well, except some “weird” replies.

Yes, English isn’t my first language, so I used AI to polish my writing. I don’t see anything wrong with that. And I’ll keep doing it.