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How to back up your Character.AI chats and characters

Updated

To back up Character.AI, request its official data export today. On the website, go to Profile Settings, then Account, then Manage Account & Data, and choose Export Data. The export takes three to four weeks to arrive by email, and the download link works for seven days. While you wait, save the chats you care about most, either by copying them or by downloading them with a browser extension such as CAI Tools, and copy the definitions of any characters you made from their edit screens.

The steps and dates on this page are as of October 29, 2026. Character.AI is in a court-supervised sale, and some of the dates below are proposals the court has not approved yet.

Why back up now

Character.AI filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 12, 2026, to sell the company. It says the app keeps running and subscriptions stay active, and it expects the sale to finish by the end of November or in early December. If no buyer offers to keep the platform running, it will be wound down.

The timing is tight because the export is slow. Under the schedule the company proposed in court, bids are due on November 20, an auction would be held on November 23 if there are competing bids, and the court would consider the sale on November 24. The court is set to rule on these bidding rules on October 30, so the dates may still move. An export requested at the end of October would arrive in about those same weeks, which is why it is worth requesting it now instead of waiting for news.

Disney is the only named bidder so far. Its $20 million offer is for a license to Character.AI’s technology, and it leaves out the app, the brand, user data, and chats. If the app and its data are sold, the buyer would be someone else.

Request the official export

Character.AI’s help center describes the export in an article updated on October 8, 2026. It is a single request for your whole account. There is no button to download one chat.

On the website:

  1. Open your profile and click Profile Settings.
  2. Click Account, then Manage Account & Data.
  3. Click Export Data. A pop-up confirms that a download link will be emailed to you.

In the iPhone or Android app:

  1. Open your profile and tap the Settings icon.
  2. Tap Legal & Privacy.
  3. Tap Export Data. A “Success” banner confirms the request.

The help center says the export may take three to four weeks. The link goes to the email address on your account and expires seven days after the email is sent, so a few habits help you get the file:

What the export contains

Character.AI doesn’t publish a list of what the export includes or what format it uses. Its older help article is titled “How can I export my chats?”, so chats are meant to be part of it. Tools built to read the file describe it as a ZIP of JSON files holding account details, characters, and messages, though that isn’t documented and the layout has changed over time.

JSON is structured plain text, so any text editor can open it, but a long chat history is hard to read that way. Free viewers can turn the file back into readable chats. If you use one, choose one that says it reads the file in your browser without uploading it, because the file holds every conversation you’ve had.

The help center doesn’t promise that the export includes alternate replies, pinned memories, images, voices, or the definitions of characters other people made. Keep your own copies of anything you can’t afford to lose.

Save your most important chats while you wait

Three to four weeks is a long wait while the sale is under way, so save the chats that matter most now. You can use a browser extension that downloads chats as files, or copy them yourself.

With the CAI Tools extension

CAI Tools is a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox, made by an independent developer, not by Character.AI. It adds a menu to character.ai with download options: a chat as a web page you can read offline, a chat in the format SillyTavern uses, and a character as a JSON file or a PNG character card. SillyTavern’s documentation recommends it for moving Character.AI chats and characters into SillyTavern. Its Chrome Web Store listing shows version 3.8.3, updated October 15, 2026. The extension is free to install, and some of its features are paid.

  1. On a computer, install CAI Tools from the Chrome Web Store or Firefox Add-ons. Extensions don’t run inside the Character.AI phone app.
  2. Sign in to character.ai in that browser and open a chat you want to keep.
  3. Click the CAI Tools button at the top right of the chat page and choose the downloads you want for the chat and the character.
  4. Repeat for each chat, and open one file of each type to check that it saved properly.

An extension like this can read everything on character.ai while you’re signed in, including your private chats. Install it only from the official store page, look at the permissions it asks for, and remove it when you’re done. Its developer notes on GitHub that the source code published there isn’t up to date, so you are trusting the store version.

Newer extensions that promise the same backups appeared in October 2026. They don’t have a track record yet, so the same cautions apply.

By hand

If you’d rather not install anything, copy the chat yourself. Open it on the website and scroll to the top so the older messages load, then select the text, copy it, and paste it into a document. Check that the order and the speakers look right after you paste. You can also save the page as a PDF from your browser’s print window, or take screenshots that overlap by one message.

Write down each character’s name and its creator’s name too, so you can find the character again or rebuild it later.

Back up the characters you made

Characters you made are the easiest to back up, because you can open them in the editor and copy every field. Character.AI’s help center lists the fields as the name, avatar, tagline, description, greeting, and voice, plus the Definition: up to 32,000 characters of personality, backstory, rules, and example dialogue. The Definition is what the AI reads to play the character, so it matters most. Copy every text field into a document, save the avatar image, and do the same for any personas you use.

For characters other people made, you can see only what the creator made public. If the definition is hidden, no tool can recover it. Save the greeting, the description, and a few typical replies from your chats instead, which is often enough to rebuild the character’s voice in another app.

Move your chats and characters to another app

Characters move between apps more easily than chats. Many roleplay apps import character cards, a community format that stores a character’s description, greeting, and example dialogue in a PNG image or a JSON file. The current versions of the format are called V2 and V3. Chat histories have no shared format, and most apps can’t import them.

To continue a long story, you don’t need the whole history in the new app. Write a short summary of where the story stands: who the characters are, what has happened, what each of them wants, and what was about to happen. Start a new chat with that summary and the last few messages. Our guides on why AI characters forget and how to pace a long AI story explain how a summary keeps a long story on track.

Should you delete your account?

Deletion is permanent, so don’t delete before your export has arrived and you’ve checked the files. Whether to delete after that depends on how you feel about your chats being part of a sale.

Character.AI’s privacy policy allows it to disclose information during a sale of company assets, and on October 27 the company told the court it believes the policy permits transferring user data in this case. The US Trustee, the Justice Department office that oversees bankruptcy cases, has asked for a consumer privacy ombudsman to review any sale of user data, and the company said it is willing to accept one under the right conditions. State attorneys general have also raised concerns about user data. None of this is settled yet.

Deleting your account doesn’t always remove the characters you shared. Character.AI’s privacy policy says it may keep a shared character active after its creator deletes their account, so that other users can keep chatting with it.

If you decide to delete, use Profile Settings, then Account, then Manage Account & Data, and Delete Account on the website. Depending on where you live, privacy laws such as the GDPR or the CCPA also let you request a copy of your data or its deletion through Character.AI’s support form or privacy@character.ai.

Common questions

Can I export a single Character.AI chat?

Not officially. Character.AI’s export covers the whole account at once. To save one chat, copy it by hand or use a browser extension such as CAI Tools.

How long does the Character.AI export take?

The help center says three to four weeks. The download link arrives by email and expires seven days after it is sent.

Can I export a character someone else made?

You can save what the creator made public: the name, greeting, description, and avatar. A hidden definition can’t be exported by any method.

What happens to my chats if Character.AI shuts down?

The company hasn’t said. Its October 12 announcement says its privacy practices are unchanged and that you can export or delete your data, but it doesn’t say what would happen to chats if the platform were wound down. Keep your own copy.

If you’re moving a long story, Lunelle AI is built around long-term memory: characters remember events, choices, and how relationships in the story have changed, across sessions. You can rebuild a character there by describing it to the creator in a chat. See what Lunelle AI is.

Sources

Character.AI, CAI Tools, SillyTavern, Chub, RisuAI, Agnai, and Janitor AI are trademarks of their owners. Lunelle AI is not affiliated with any of them.