overleaf-comments-export

⚠️ Unofficial tool. This is a third-party utility that talks to Overleaf's undocumented internal HTTP endpoints. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Overleaf. Endpoints may change without notice. Use at your own risk and in accordance with Overleaf's Terms of Service.

Export the comment threads and tracked changes from an Overleaf project into clean Markdown + structured JSON — designed so an AI assistant (Claude, ChatGPT, etc.) can ingest reviewer feedback and help you address it.

Why

Overleaf doesn't provide a way to export comments or tracked changes for use outside the editor. If you want to:

• have an AI agent draft point-by-point replies to reviewers,
• archive reviewer discussions outside of Overleaf,
• batch-address feedback across a large paper, or
• split feedback by reviewer to delegate work,

… you currently have to copy comments by hand. This tool automates that, given an Overleaf project URL and a logged-in browser session.

Install

pip install overleaf-comments-export

Requires Python 3.10+. Works on macOS, Linux, and Windows.

Quick start

CLI

overleaf-comments-export \
    --project-url https://www.overleaf.com/project/<24-hex-id> \
    --out ./paper-comments \
    --browser safari

The first time you run it, sign in to Overleaf in your browser of choice; the tool reads the session cookie from there.

GUI

overleaf-comments-export --gui

Opens a small Tkinter window with all options surfaced. Best for non-technical users.

What it produces

In your output folder, by default:

Filtering

# Only open comments
overleaf-comments-export --project-url … --out ./out --no-resolved

# Only one reviewer's threads
overleaf-comments-export --project-url … --out ./out --reviewer "Emma"

# Compact (default) vs. detailed (multi-line code-fence) layout
overleaf-comments-export --project-url … --out ./out --render-mode detailed

# Per-reviewer sub-reports under ./out/by-reviewer/
overleaf-comments-export --project-url … --out ./out --per-reviewer

Full flag reference: overleaf-comments-export --help.

Browser authentication

The tool reads the overleaf_session2 cookie from your browser. Trade-offs by browser on macOS:

On Windows, Chrome 127+ uses App-Bound Encryption that browser-cookie3 can't decrypt. On Linux, snap-packaged browsers sandbox their cookie stores.

If reading the cookie from your browser fails, paste it instead — this works on every OS and browser:

overleaf-comments-export --project-url <url> --out ./out --cookie "PASTE_HERE"

Or set it once: export OVERLEAF_SESSION="PASTE_HERE". In the GUI, choose "Paste the cookie myself" and click How? for step-by-step instructions.

To find it: open Overleaf, press F12, go to Application (or Storage) → Cookies → https://www.overleaf.com, and copy the Value of overleaf_session2. Treat it like a password; it stops working when you sign out.

Troubleshooting

Status & maintenance

This is a personal research utility published in case it's useful to others. It is provided as-is, with no guaranteed maintenance, no SLA, and no roadmap. Pull requests are welcome; issues may or may not be acted upon.

If Overleaf changes their internal API, this tool may stop working until someone (you?) adapts it.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.