How to export and save your Character.AI chats

Last updated October 27, 2026 · Android, iPhone, and web · By the developer of LonelyTavern

Request your Character.AI data export today. Character.AI says it takes 3–4 weeks to arrive; ours took 1–2. The company is in Chapter 11 and expects its sale to close in late November or early December 2026, so an export requested now may arrive only days before that.

What's happening

• October 12, 2026: Character.AI filed for Chapter 11 to sell the company in a court-supervised process. The app stays up during the sale.
• The sale is expected to close by the end of November or early December 2026. If no buyer keeps the platform running, Character.AI says it will be wound down.
• As of October 27, 2026, the app is up, and no shutdown date or export deadline has been announced.

Step 1: Request the Character.AI data export

The steps, from Character.AI's help center:

• Android or iPhone app: open your Profile, tap the Settings icon, then Legal & Privacy → Export Data. A "Success" banner confirms the request.
• Web: Profile → Profile Settings → Account → Manage Account & Data → Export Data.

What happens next:

• It takes weeks. Character.AI says 3–4; our own exports took 1–2. Nothing shows progress in between.
• An email brings a download link, sent to your account's email address. The link works for 7 days, so download the zip the day it arrives and keep it somewhere you control.
• The zip is password-protected. The password is the email address the link was sent to.

Step 2: Import the zip into LonelyTavern

LonelyTavern reads the export as it arrives. Nothing to convert. On your phone:

1. Save the zip to your phone: Files on iPhone, Downloads on Android.
2. Open LonelyTavern, tap + on Home, and under Move from Character.AI tap Import Character.AI export (.zip). If that section is missing, close the app fully and open it again: the import arrives as an update on the second launch.
3. Pick the zip and type the password: the email address the link was sent to.
4. On Review import, check where each chat goes. Tap a chat to pick who it's with, give it a name, or skip it. Then tap Import.

What comes over:

• The characters you created, with their pictures.
• Your personas.
• Every chat that has more than a greeting.

What needs a hand from you:

• Bots you didn't create. The export holds your chats with them, not the bots, so each of those chats arrives on "Unnamed character N". Name it on Review, or later: open the chat, tap the name at the top, then Edit.
• Who wrote each message. The export doesn't say, so the app guesses. If one is wrong, long-press it and mark whose it is.
• Several chats with one character become one character per chat, so each chat stays one tap away on Home.

Without LonelyTavern

Most apps that import chat history read the Tavern chat format: a plain text file with one message per line. Your export holds the same messages as JSON, and any capable AI model can convert a chat into the Tavern format in one request.

On a computer, the community CAI Tools extension for Chrome and Firefox saves a chat straight into the Tavern format. We don't maintain it; check its last update before you rely on it.

Bots other people made aren't in the export. Rebuild one from its public description and from the way it spoke in your chats.

Character.AI is an independent product of its respective company. LonelyTavern is not affiliated with or endorsed by it or by the authors of any community tool. The export steps, wait, and link validity follow Character.AI's help center (updated October 2026, read October 27, 2026); the bankruptcy details follow its announcement of October 12, 2026. Community tools are third-party software; review them yourself before use.