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Tom
Tom

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How I built a privacy-first ChatGPT migrator (and why JSON parsing is a nightmare)

The Problem: I realized that platform lock-in is real. I have 3 years of code snippets, brainstorming, and writing in ChatGPT. I wanted to move to Gemini, but “portability” isn’t exactly a priority for these big AI labs.

The Technical Challenge: The OpenAI export file is a massive, nested JSON structure. Parsing it efficiently in the browser without crashing the UI thread was tricky even after that only works for personal accounts if you use Business or Enterprise ChatGPT doesn’t even give you JSON exports.

The Privacy Decision: I could have spun up a Python backend to process this easily. But asking users to upload their chat history is a massive security risk. So I decided to go the hard route: 100% client-side processing.

Where I’m at: I’ve got the MVP working and I’m looking for beta testers who have a lot of chats to test the limits of the application I’ve built. It’s an Electron app.

You can grab a spot on the waitlist here: https://www.chatgpt2gemini.com/

Top comments (6)

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rachitlogs profile image
Rachit

This is exactly what I've been looking for. Super helpful, thanks for putting in the work to build this.

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adarsh_chaudhary_f1c9e551 profile image
Adarsh Chaudhary

This is exactly what I’ve been searching for. Local-first chat migration makes a lot of sense.
Would love to try it out.

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shubham_jain_82b833909f38 profile image
Shubham Jain

I am using AI tools day and night, and your product is a game changer for me. Awesome.. thanxxx

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abhikhatri67 profile image
Abhishek Khatri • Edited

This is a great idea. Model switching is easy, preserving long-term context isn’t. I’ve avoided migrating because I didn’t want to lose historical chats or trust a third-party upload.

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vishnu_kumar_7e124946923b profile image
Vishnu kumar

Love this—such a practical and efficient tool that removes tons of manual work, with a solid privacy-first approach.

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adithya_8cd95aa3588cb71c5 profile image
Adithya

Have been trying to use this, registered weeks ago but the site is down now. Wondering if this is a form of email harvesting at this point!