claude-exporter

Export Claude.ai conversations to Markdown from the terminal — with artifacts, tool calls, citations, and an optional AI-generated table of contents.

npx claude-exporter https://claude.ai/chat/<id>

This is the CLI surface. There is also an Obsidian plugin and a Chrome extension that share the same converter — see the main README on GitHub for those.

Install

Run without installing:

npx claude-exporter <chat-url-or-id> [flags]

Or install globally:

npm install -g claude-exporter
claude-exporter <chat-url-or-id> [flags]

Requires Node 18 or newer. Chrome (or another Chromium build) must be installed; the CLI launches it in a separate profile — see Access to claude.ai chats.

Examples

# Full list of arguments
claude-exporter --help

# Quickest start — export one chat into the current folder
npx claude-exporter https://claude.ai/chat/abc-123

# Text-only — skip artifact files and inline images
npx claude-exporter https://claude.ai/chat/abc-123 --no-artifacts --no-images

# Full transcript — include assistant thinking blocks and tool-call details
npx claude-exporter https://claude.ai/chat/abc-123 --thinking --tools

# Custom Markdown layout via a template file
npx claude-exporter https://claude.ai/chat/abc-123 --template ./my-template.md

# AI table of contents with per-topic recaps
# (requires the `claude` CLI installed and logged in — see "AI enrichment" below)
npx claude-exporter https://claude.ai/chat/abc-123 --toc recap

# Vault-style export: Obsidian flavor, custom template, attachments
# redirected to a shared Attachments folder
npx claude-exporter https://claude.ai/chat/abc-123 \
  -o ~/vault/Claude \
  --attachments-dir ~/vault/Claude/Attachments \
  --format obsidian \
  --template ~/vault/Claude/_claude-template.md

Flags

Layout:
  -o, --output-dir <dir>              Note directory (default: .)
      --attachments-dir <dir>         Attachments destination (override)

Rendering:
      --format standard|obsidian      (default: standard)
      --template <path>               Markdown template file
      --chat-name <name>              Literal chat filename
      --chat-name-template <tpl>      Templated chat filename
      --artifact-name-template <tpl>  Templated artifact filename

Content:
      --no-artifacts                  Skip artifact files
      --no-images                     Skip inline image fetch
      --thinking                      Include assistant thinking
      --tools                         Include tool-call details

Enrichment (mutually exclusive with --template; with --template, declare via placeholders):
      --toc headers|recap             AI table of contents (recap adds per-topic summaries)
      --topics                        Key-topics list

Refresh:
      --existing <md-path>            Existing markdown for TOC reuse (in-progress patch is automatic)

Output:
      --json                          Machine-readable single-object stdout
      --debug                         Verbose logging to stderr

Chrome:
      --chrome-path <path>            (env: CHROME_PATH)
      --chrome-port <n>               (default: 9222)

Access to claude.ai chats

On first run, the CLI launches a separate Chrome profile (empty, isolated from your main browser) and opens claude.ai. You log in once in that window; the session cookie stays in that profile for subsequent exports. Chrome is driven over the DevTools Protocol, so requests to the conversation endpoint carry the same cookie a real browser would.

Nothing is stored by the tool itself — no tokens, no credentials — and nothing leaves your machine. The CLI reads Anthropic's internal conversation endpoint; there is no SLA on its shape, so a schema change upstream will break exports until the converter is updated.

AI enrichment (optional)

The --toc, --toc recap, and --topics features use the Claude Agent SDK with the claude-haiku-4-5 model. Authentication is delegated to the local claude CLI — whichever account you're logged into there is what gets used. No API key needs to be set anywhere.

Without the claude CLI installed and logged in, enrichment flags and template placeholders render empty.

Incremental re-export: when re-exporting a note (--existing) that already has a TOC, existing entries are parsed and reused, and the model only runs if new messages were added.

Templates

Every exported note is rendered through a template string. Override the default with --template <path>. Variables use {{name}} syntax — see the Template system section in the main README for the full variable list.

Limitations

• Manual login on first run. The first export pops up a Chrome window for an interactive sign-in; subsequent exports reuse the profile cookie until it expires.
• Requires Chrome on disk. No headless fallback and no built-in Chromium. Point --chrome-path (or CHROME_PATH) at any Chromium build if Chrome isn't your default.
• Internal API. No SLA on the upstream conversation endpoint; an upstream schema change can break exports until the converter is updated.

Changelog

Release notes live on the GitHub Releases page.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.