How to export and back up your Chai chats
We wrote this after watching someone lose months of Chai history and rebuild it by hand. The method below is what worked.
The short answer
Chai has no export. There is no button, no download, and no file. What you see in the app is the only copy of your conversations, and it sits on Chai's servers under Chai's rules.
Why this matters more than it used to
In April 2026, Chai ran a test that hid every message older than 14 days:
- It came with no warning.
- Paying Ultra subscribers lost their history too.
- Some people lost conversations more than a year old.
Chai's founder said on Reddit afterwards that longer chat history was the team's top priority and that a fix was days away. Take the warning anyway.
It was not restored. Users now report that chats expire after 30 days, and in September 2026 Chai put messaging itself behind per-message credits, so a free account rations replies rather than sending them freely.
Storing old messages costs Chai money, so how long they keep yours is Chai's decision, not yours. The only chats you are sure to keep are the ones you have your own copy of.
How to save a Chai chat today
No tool can pull the text out of the app, so you photograph it instead. This is slow, and it is the only thing that works.
- Screenshot the whole conversation. Start at the top and work down, overlapping each shot a little so no message is cut in half. A long chat means hundreds of screenshots. Keep them all in one folder, in order.
- Turn the screenshots into text. An AI assistant that reads images can transcribe a batch at a time. Ask it for a plain transcript with a speaker label on every line. Apps that do text recognition work too. For a long chat, expect the assistant to cost a few dollars.
- Clean the transcript. Overlapping shots leave duplicate lines, timestamps and buttons come along for the ride, and speakers get swapped. Read it through. This takes longer than the screenshots did.
- Store it where no app can delete it. A text file in your own cloud storage, or on your computer. Once the file is yours, what Chai does with its servers stops mattering.
Do this before you need it. Last time there was no warning.
Continuing the story somewhere else
A transcript is a backup. To keep chatting you need two more things.
An app that imports history. Most of them read the Tavern chat format, a plain text file with one message per line. Any capable AI model can convert a clean transcript into it in a single request. LonelyTavern shows the exact format on its import screen, so you can check the file first.
The character, rebuilt. A Chai bot runs on a description you mostly cannot see, so write a new one. Say who they are, how they talk, and what situation you were in. Your transcript is the best guide you will have to how they spoke.
Leaving Character.AI as well? Its export works differently. See our Character.AI guide.
About the model
People leave Chai for two reasons. The chats disappear, and the writing is weak.
Chai runs its own models, and you cannot change them. Apps that take your own API key let you pick the model yourself, from DeepSeek, Claude, GPT, or anything a router such as OpenRouter offers, including free ones.
The difference shows up in the first reply. It is the part of the move most people do not expect to enjoy.
Where we'd take it
LonelyTavern is the app we built for this move. It imports Tavern chat history and character cards, connects to any OpenAI-compatible provider under your own key, and keeps everything on your phone. It is free, with no account and no ads.
It is an 18+ app, so it asks you to confirm your age. That is the only thing it ever asks you for.
We also built an internal tool that turns a folder of screenshots into an importable chat. If you would want that inside the app, tell us at [email protected].
Chai is an independent product of its developer. LonelyTavern is not affiliated with or endorsed by Chai. Details about Chai's history retention reflect public reporting as of September 2026 and may have changed since.