Guide · Updated November 2026
How to save your Character.AI chats before the sale: the official export, step by step
Requesting your Character.AI export takes a few minutes; the archive takes time to process, and the company is in a court-supervised sale, so request it today. This guide gives the exact steps, the sale dates that set the deadline, and what to use next once your archive is safe. It is maintained by Ouba (ouba.art), a reader-first AI fiction platform.
Character.AI's built-in export saves your chat history and account information: Profile → Profile Settings → Account → Manage Account & Data → Export Data on the web, or 'Export my data' in the mobile app. Character Technologies filed Chapter 11 on October 12, 2026; competing bids are due November 20 and the sale hearing is November 24. Processing takes time: request it today.
The export steps
Character.AI's export is the built-in account export, requested from the product itself. The steps are in the Character.AI help center:
- Web: Profile → Profile Settings → Account → Manage Account & Data → Export Data.
- Mobile app: Profile → Profile Settings → Account → Manage Account & Data → Export my data.
The archive contains your account information and chat history. It can take time to process, so request it now and treat the wait as done. Two habits worth copying: request the export before you delete anything (deleted chats generally do not come back), and keep a second copy of the archive in cloud storage you control.
The Chapter 11 dates that set the deadline
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| October 12, 2026 | Character Technologies files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to run a court-supervised sale. |
| November 20, 2026 | Deadline for competing bids. Disney's $20 million stalking-horse bid — a non-exclusive license to certain Character.AI technology — is the opening offer. |
| November 23, 2026 | Auction, if more than one qualified bid lands. |
| November 24, 2026 | Sale approval hearing in bankruptcy court. |
| Late November – early December 2026 | Expected close. The app is operating during the sale; coverage of the case reports the consumer app could shut down after the transaction closes. |
As of November 1, 2026, the app is running and the export is available. The point of the calendar is simpler: until the sale closes, the export is a request away; after a shutdown, it is gone.
What the export contains — and what it doesn't
- Chats: yes. The archive preserves your conversations as a record you can open and search. Treat it as a record of what was said; to continue a story elsewhere, copy the passages you need.
- Account details: yes. The archive includes your account information.
- Personas and character definitions: copy by hand. Open each persona and bot you care about and paste its description, greeting, and settings into a document. There is no separate one-click export for definitions.
- Your subscription: separate. Character.AI+ billing is not part of the export; it is managed wherever you subscribed (Google Play, the App Store, or the web).
If the export is slow or fails
Request it again; the help center notes processing can take time. For chats you cannot wait on, the manual method works today: open the chat on the web, scroll up until the full history loads, and copy the text or save the page. Community browser extensions can bulk-save chats, but they are unofficial tools and carry account risk — the built-in export is the safe path.
After the export: what to use next
| If you want | The shape that fits | Where to look |
|---|---|---|
| To read a story you steer | AI interactive fiction: authored, branching stories with choices. | Ouba (ouba.art): 18+, on web and Android; guests read up to 25 turns per story without an account. |
| Open-ended chat with a persona | Another character-chat platform with the policies you need. | Janitor AI is adult-oriented; the full intent-sorted list is in the alternatives guide. |
| To direct the plot as a writer | An AI writing or text-adventure tool. | AI Dungeon and NovelAI are the established names; each publishes its own age terms. |
| A companion for an ongoing relationship | A companion app, which is a different product from a story. | Kindroid, Nomi, and Replika are the established names in that shape. |
Your exported archive is a record of conversations. If what you actually liked was the story — a world, a character, an arc you steered — Ouba is the story-first pick: reader-first AI fiction for adults (18+). Guests read up to 25 turns per story without an account.
Related guides
- Best Character.AI alternatives: the full intent-sorted list.
- Moving from Character.AI: what transfers and what to expect.
- Character.AI alternatives 2026: what changed this year, and the current field.
- Character.AI not working?: common causes and fixes, and the story-first fallback.
- Ouba vs. Character.AI: the head-to-head, side by side.