navig-chats

A local library for your AI conversations: import your ChatGPT data export, save chats from the page with the NAVIG Dock, search every message offline, organise them in folders, and export to Markdown, HTML, JSON or a checksummed zip.

Works on its own — its own CLI, no navig required · v0.1.0 · not on PyPI yet (install from source below)

On its own (no navig needed)

pip install "git+https://github.com/navig-run/plugins#subdirectory=navig-chats"
navig-chats --help   # no navig needed

With navig

pip install "git+https://github.com/navig-run/plugins#subdirectory=navig-chats"
navig chats --help

A local library for your AI conversations. It runs as navig chats inside NAVIG, or as navig-chats on its own.

• Import your ChatGPT history. Use the account export (ChatGPT → Settings → Data controls → Export data). Every chat comes in with all of its branches, and the branch ChatGPT showed you is marked. Re-importing changes nothing.
• Save chats while you browse. The NAVIG Dock's ChatGPT Lens adds a chat button to the page. Click it to save the chat. A saved chat refreshes itself when you come back to it. You can also turn on "Save every chat I open".
• Search every message offline. Use "exact phrases", -exclusions, prefix* and OR. Results are ranked by relevance and point at the exact message. Open the match back in ChatGPT, or read the library copy.
• Organise in NAVIG folders. Folders, tags, pins and local renames are an overlay on your computer. They never change ChatGPT or its Projects.
• Export in formats that outlive NAVIG. Choose Markdown with front matter, HTML, plain text, or a JSON bundle. A zip of many chats includes a sha256 manifest. restore brings a NAVIG archive back into the library.

navig chats import ~/Downloads/chatgpt-export.zip
navig chats search '"borrow checker" -python'
navig chats show 67f1c2d3
navig chats folders add Work
navig chats move 67f1c2d3 --to <folder-id>
navig chats export --all -o chats.zip

Where the data lives

Your chats live in one SQLite file on this computer: <navig data dir>/chats.db, or the path in $NAVIG_CHATS_DB. It is separate from the NAVIG agent's own memory. A chat reaches the agent only if you choose to share it.

The deck routes (/api/deck/chats/*), used by the Dock and the Library page, answer only this computer. They are not reachable through a tunnel, Lighthouse or the Telegram Mini App.

What it does not do

• It never asks for, reads or stores ChatGPT session tokens, and it never calls ChatGPT's private endpoints. It reads only what your export contains, or what the page shows you.

• Completeness is labelled honestly:

  • complete: imported from your export.
  • rendered: saved from the page, covering the branch you saw.
  • partial: some messages are missing.
  • url_only: only the link is saved.

  Attachments the library never held are listed as missing. They are never invented.

• Restoring an archive restores the library. It cannot recreate chats inside ChatGPT.