How to export your characters and chats from Character.AI
data export · bankruptcy window
Character.AI's data export lives in your profile settings on the web app, and the company's own bankruptcy update now points users to it. Request the archive, open it, and copy the character definitions (greeting, description, example dialogues) into a plain text file: chats are memories, but definitions are the character, and they are the part that takes work to rebuild anywhere else. The sale of the company is expected to close in late November or early December 2026.
Why this is worth twenty minutes in October 2026
Character.AI filed for Chapter 11 on October 12, 2026. Disney has entered a $20 million stalking-horse bid for some of the company's assets plus a non-exclusive license to its technology (no one has bid for the company as a whole yet), and is hiring the majority of the staff. The company's public update states the obvious in plain words: if no actionable bid emerges, the platform will be wound down, and it directs users to the export and account-deletion tools in the meantime. Around forty state attorneys general are contesting whether users' chat archives can transfer to a buyer at all.
None of that changes how the app behaves today. It changes who controls your data's future: the court, not you. The export is the one step that moves a copy back under your control.
The export, step by step
- Open the web app, not the mobile app. Account-level settings, including data export, are most reliable in a desktop browser at character.ai.
- Find the data-export option in Settings. Request the archive. Delivery is by download link or email. It can take weeks to arrive, so request it today.
- Open the archive before you rely on it. Confirm the files contain what you expected: conversation histories, and character definitions where the format includes them. Formats have changed before and can change again mid-bankruptcy.
- Copy character definitions to plain text. For every bot you want to keep: name, greeting, description, personality notes, example dialogues. A text file recreates a character on any platform; a proprietary archive recreates it only where it can be parsed.
- Only then decide about deletion. If keeping your chat history out of a contested bankruptcy estate matters to you, account deletion before the sale closes is the only lever you hold. Deletion is permanent and ends your access, so export first, decide second.
| Item | In the export? | Worth saving separately? |
|---|---|---|
| Chat histories | Yes, as conversation logs | Only if you reread them; heavy to store, hard to import anywhere |
| Character definitions | Varies by format and account type | Always: greeting, description, example dialogues as plain text |
| Personas and profile settings | Not reliably | Copy if you use custom personas |
| Shared or public bots you authored | As definitions, if yours | Same plain-text treatment |
Archive contents are the company's to change during Chapter 11; the table reflects what exports have contained as of October 2026, verified against user reports and the company's own update, not against any guaranteed spec.
Rebuilding the character elsewhere
A plain-text definition ports into anything. Chat platforms (JanitorAI, SpicyChat, Chai) take the greeting-and-description shape almost directly, since that format started there. Story platforms are a different fit: they do not run your bot, they run a story. If what you actually enjoyed was the character's ongoing narrative rather than the back-and-forth, the closer landing is a story app. Ouba (ouba.art) is the clearest example of the type: you steer the plot in plain language, the engine branches the novel around your move, and a character from a text definition becomes a premise in one paragraph. It is free to start (500 quills on sign-up, 10 per turn, plus daily check-ins), 18+ with content labels, on Android and web, with no iOS app yet.
For the full comparison of story-first landings, see chat to chapter: moving to story apps, and for the broader migration picture, the verdict on roleplay versus reading covers why chat sessions drift where story apps hold.
What not to wait for
- A better export format. Bankruptcy timelines do not bend toward user convenience. The format available today is the one to work with.
- Clarity on the sale. The attorneys general fight may protect chat data or may not; neither outcome restores access after a wind-down.
- Third-party scrapers. Tools that promise to bulk-download your chats require your session token, which is exactly the credential you should not hand out during a data-custody fight.