1. Export ChatGPT Data

Goal: get your ChatGPT export and place conversations.json into the project directory layout.

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Export from ChatGPT

In ChatGPT settings, find “Export data”, download the export archive and unzip it.

You should typically see:

• conversations.json
• chat.html
• assets/ (optional)

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Put it into the project (recommended)

./data/openai-export/conversations.json

If you have multiple exports (e.g., two different accounts), it’s recommended to keep each export in its own subfolder (just unzip into different subfolders):

./data/openai-export/user_a/conversations.json
./data/openai-export/user_a/chat.html
./data/openai-export/user_b/conversations.json
./data/openai-export/user_b/chat.html

openai-distill will recursively scan data/openai-export/ and merge all discovered conversations.json.

If you still have the legacy folder openai_data/, openai-distill can read it and will print a migration tip.