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Prism shuts down Jan 1, 2027: export your projects to Overleaf without losing work

#latex #openai #overleaf #writing

OpenAI's Prism to Codex migration guide is blunt: "Prism will shut down on January 1, 2027." And: "After shutdown, all Prism-related data will be deleted... Once the data is deleted, it cannot be recovered."

The export is easy. What it leaves out is the part people lose. Here's how to get everything out and onto Overleaf (or a local folder) safely.

What the export does and doesn't keep

According to OpenAI's guide (checked Oct 31, 2026):

  • Kept: your project files, as a zip.
  • Not kept: project history, inline comments, collaborator permissions, and the live Zotero connection.
  • Maybe kept: the all-projects archive can include a conversations folder (JSON) for some projects. It's for reference only.
  • Shared projects you don't own: the zip has the files but not your Prism conversation history.

So the order is: save the things the zip drops, then export.

Step 1: Save what the zip leaves out

OpenAI's advice is to "copy important context and save milestone versions before shutdown."

  • Comments: open each project and copy the comments you need into a NOTES.md, or into % comments next to the text they refer to.
  • History: if an older version matters, save it as a dated copy, e.g. paper-2026-10-31/.
  • Zotero: the live link stops working. Export a fresh .bib from Zotero into the project folder. Your \cite{} keys keep working as long as they're in the .bib.
  • Collaborators: write down who had access so you can invite them again.

Step 2: Export

  • All projects: Settings → Data Controls → Export all projects (zip) → Download zip.
  • One project: the project-title menu → Export (zip).
  • For each important project, open its last good PDF preview and click Download PDF. That PDF is your reference for checking the new build.

If the archive contains export-errors.json, the guide says to retry with the project menu's Export (zip), and to email support@openai.com if a project is still missing.

Step 3: Check the zip before you trust it

Unzip it and check, per project:

unzip -l prism-export.zip | less          # is every project there?
find . -name '*.tex' -exec grep -l '\\documentclass' {} +   # root documents
find . -name '*.bib'                       # bibliographies made it?
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Compare file counts against what you see in Prism. Keep a SHA-256 list (find . -type f -exec sha256sum {} + > MANIFEST.txt) so you can prove later that nothing changed.

Step 4: Upload to Overleaf

  1. In Overleaf: New project → Upload project, and pick a zip of one project (zip the project folder, not the whole archive).
  2. Mind Overleaf's limits from its upload docs: 50 MB per file, 180 files per upload, 2,000 files per project, 7 MB of editable text.
  3. Overleaf compiles with pdfLaTeX by default. If your project used XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX, change the compiler in the menu and check the main document is set.
  4. Compile and compare against the PDF you saved in Step 2.

Or move to Codex (OpenAI's own path)

The guide's route is to open the extracted folder as a project in Codex in the ChatGPT desktop app, run it locally with approvals on, and start with an audit prompt that inspects the project without changing it. Either way, keep the original zip untouched.

Don't leave it for December

Exporting takes minutes. Rebuilding lost comments from memory doesn't. Do the export this week and keep the zip in two places.

I wrote a small offline Python script that checks a Prism export (manifest, root .tex, .bib, export errors) and builds one Overleaf-ready zip per project, plus a checklist PDF. It's here if it helps. The steps above work without it.

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