Data import: ChatGPT & Claude

With data import, you can bring your previous conversations from ChatGPT or Claude into 9brains. Important histories, attachments and remembered details stay available when you continue working in 9brains. From Claude, your projects and artifacts come along too.

Start an import

1. Request your data export from ChatGPT or Claude.
2. Download the export once it is ready. ChatGPT delivers a single ZIP file. Claude splits its export into several ZIP files, one per area, for example conversations-000.zip, memories-000.zip, projects-000.zip and frames-000.zip. The links to them are in Claude’s email or in the file manifest.json. Download all of these files.
3. In 9brains, open Settings → Personal Settings → Data Import.
4. Click Import history and select the ZIP file. For Claude, select all the downloaded files together, or drag them into the field together.

You do not need the manifest.json itself; it is only the list of download links. If you select it together with the ZIP files, 9brains leaves it out. If you have already packed Claude’s files into one ZIP file yourself, you can upload that one as well.

The import runs in the background. You can keep working and follow progress on the import page. Afterwards, the import history shows what was imported, for Claude also the projects and project files that were created.

What gets imported?

For both sources, 9brains imports your conversations with title, timestamps and message history. After the import, the chats appear in your sidebar with a subtle label, either ChatGPT or Claude.

From ChatGPT

For ChatGPT exports, file attachments, images and Canvas documents are also imported when they are included in the export. The files land in your Workspace and can be reused in the imported chats.

From Claude

• Chats, including those from Claude Design. Artifacts and files Claude created in a conversation appear in the history as code blocks so the history stays understandable. Attachments whose text Claude extracted come along with that text.
• Memories: what Claude remembered about you appears after the import as memory candidates for you to choose from (see below).
• Projects: every Claude project becomes a project in 9brains. The description stays the description, the instructions go into the project context under “Instructions from Claude”, and the project’s documents become project files.
• Artifacts: your artifacts land as files in the project Imported from Claude, each in the version Claude showed last.

9brains only imports projects and artifacts if you can use projects in 9brains. Otherwise, chats and memories still arrive, and the import history tells you that projects and artifacts are missing. If a file no longer fits into a project because it is too large or the storage space or the number of files is used up, 9brains leaves it out and the import history says how many files are missing.

What the Claude export does not provide

• Chats do not land in their projects. The export does not say which chat belonged to which project, so the chats are in your general history. You can file them under a project yourself.
• Files you uploaded to Claude are not in the export. In their place, 9brains shows a note about the file in the chat but does not create a file in your Workspace.
• Older versions of an artifact are not imported, only the one shown last.

Review memory candidates

ChatGPT and Claude can contain information that is useful as personal notes for your 9brains memory. After a completed import, 9brains shows these items as memory candidates.

You decide which entries to import. Nothing is written to your memory automatically. The usual memory limits apply per entry, up to 500 characters per entry and up to 60 selectable candidates from one import.

Undo an import

Every import can be undone from the import history. This removes the chats that import created, along with their files. Your existing 9brains chats remain unchanged.

Projects created by a Claude import stay, together with their files, when you undo it. If you do not need them, delete them yourself.

Notes and limits

• From a ChatGPT export, 9brains picks out what the import needs before uploading: your conversations and the images and attachments used in them. Voice recordings and files no conversation refers to stay on your computer. This way even exports that are many gigabytes in size can be imported.
• The files of a Claude export are uploaded as they are.
• The upload may be at most 10 GB in total, for ChatGPT after the selection above.
• Keep the browser window open until the upload has finished. The import then continues in the background.
• Only one import can run per user at a time.
• Conversations that have already been imported are skipped automatically if you upload the same export again. Projects with the same name are filled further instead of being created a second time.
• Unknown ZIP formats are rejected. Please upload a data export from ChatGPT or Claude.

Related settings

For how personal notes and the automatic profile work, see Memory: Personal Memory.