Getting ChatGPT into Obsidian: the options compared
You have conversations.json and you want readable notes in your vault. There are
four honest ways to do it. This page includes our own tool, and says plainly where something
else is the better choice.
What is the best way to get ChatGPT conversations into Obsidian?
For a handful of conversations, a browser tool is fastest: nothing to install, and the export never leaves your machine. For your whole archive, kept current as you re-export every few months, a desktop app is the better instrument — it can find the files it wrote last time and update them in place, which no browser tool can do. If you are comfortable with Python, an open-source script does the bulk conversion for nothing.
All of these work from the official ChatGPT export. None of them need your password, and none need an API key.
The comparison
| Browser tool (this site) | ChatKeeper desktop app | Open-source script | Upload-based site | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Install needed | None | Yes — Win/macOS/Linux | Python | None |
| File leaves your device | No | No | No | Yes |
| Browse & search whole export | Free, unlimited | First 30 conversations free | No viewer | Varies |
| Cost for bulk export | $29 one-time | One-time licence | Free | Varies |
| Re-export updates files in place | No | Yes | Depends on script | No |
| Images and canvas content | No — text only | Yes | Depends | Varies |
| YAML front matter / conversation IDs | No | Yes | Depends | Rarely |
| Shows edited prompts & discarded replies | Yes | Not documented | Rarely | Rarely |
| Reads Claude exports too | Yes | Not documented | Rarely | Varies |
| Works on a locked-down work laptop | Yes | Needs install rights | Needs Python | Yes |
When ChatKeeper is the better choice — and it often is
ChatKeeper is a desktop app from Martian Software that converts a ChatGPT export into Markdown files for Obsidian and similar tools. It is paid software with a one-time licence and a free trial covering your first 30 conversations. It processes everything locally.
Three things it does that our browser tool does not, and that matter if you are archiving seriously:
- Incremental updates. Export again next month and it finds the files it created last time and updates them in place, rather than leaving you to reconcile duplicates by hand. For an archive you intend to maintain, this is the single most valuable feature on this page, and a browser tab structurally cannot offer it.
- Richer content. Its published sample preserves timestamps, conversation IDs in YAML front matter and web-search indicators, and it advertises images and canvas content. We export text only.
- Folder organisation and index files across the whole archive, rather than a flat ZIP of Markdown.
If you want your entire ChatGPT history living in Obsidian permanently and kept in sync, buy it. We are not going to pretend a browser tab is better at that job.
When a browser tool is the better choice
- You want to look before you commit. Browsing and searching your whole export is free and unlimited here, with no install and no trial counter. Plenty of people open their export once out of curiosity and never need a permanent pipeline.
- You cannot install software. Work laptops, managed devices, Chromebooks. A web page that never uploads anything is often the only option that clears both the IT policy and the privacy question at once.
- You want the branches. Editing a prompt or regenerating a reply leaves the old version in the export as a sibling node that ChatGPT stops displaying. Our export viewer follows the same path ChatGPT does, then flags every fork so you can read and keep the discarded versions. ChatKeeper's published sample and FAQ do not cover this, and most scripts ignore it.
- You also use Claude. The same tool reads Claude's export, which has a different structure.
The free script route
Several open-source projects convert a ChatGPT export to Markdown, and if you are comfortable running Python they cost nothing and handle the whole archive at once. The trade-offs are the usual ones: you are responsible for dependencies, output formatting varies by project, and most of them walk the export by timestamp rather than following the conversation tree — which means edited prompts can appear as though you asked the same question twice.
If you are technical and doing this once, a script is a perfectly good answer and we would not argue you out of it.
The one option to be careful with
Sites that ask you to upload conversations.json deserve a harder look than the
others. That file commonly spans years and can include work documents you pasted, code from
private repositories, and medical, financial or legal questions. It is close to the worst
single file you could hand to a stranger.
Read the wording precisely. "Processed in memory and deleted immediately" still means the file was transmitted to someone else's server. The claim you want is that the file never leaves the browser — and it is testable: load the page, disconnect from the internet, then use the tool. If it still works, nothing was uploaded. That test works on our tool, and you should run it rather than take our word.
How to get your export in the first place
- In ChatGPT: Settings → Data controls → Export data, and confirm.
- OpenAI emails a download link, usually within minutes. It expires, so download promptly.
- Unzip the archive. The file every tool on this page wants is
conversations.json.
From there, our ChatGPT export viewer will open it in the browser, or install ChatKeeper if you want the maintained-archive workflow.
Disclosure
We make one of the tools on this page. We have no commercial relationship with Martian Software, are not paid to mention ChatKeeper, and there are no affiliate links here. The ChatKeeper details come from its own FAQ, download page and published sample output, checked on 31 August 2026 — software changes, so verify the current pricing and feature list on their site before buying. If something here is wrong, tell us and we will correct it.