Markdown Chat Reader
Read your exported AI chats as a phone-style chat, keep them sorted in folders, and back them up as plain Markdown files. It runs in your browser, works offline, and installs on your phone like an app.
Live site: https://sarail19th.github.io/markdown-chat-reader/
Why this exists
I wanted a backup of my ChatGPT chats that I could read on Google Drive. The export turned out to be one huge file: every chat from every project mixed together by date, with no project names. Asking another AI to sort it out meant uploading all my chats, running into free-plan limits, and hoping nothing got shortened along the way.
So I made this. It opens the export on my own phone, lets me put chats back into folders, and saves them as .md files that Google Drive shows as plain text and this app shows as a chat. Nothing leaves the device.
I built it with help from Claude (Claude Code), and I test each change on my own phone.
How it works
- Export your chats from ChatGPT, Claude or another AI app (Help in the app lists the steps).
- Open the export here (ChatGPT, Claude and Grok). Tap a chat to read it, use Move to folder to sort chats into projects (titles that start with
[Name] go into the folder Name), and Download .zip for one .md file per chat, in folders. For other apps, Help has a prompt that asks an AI to do the conversion.
- Read any time. Open a
.md file, or the backup .zip to get its list back.
Your chats stay with you
- Files and exports are read inside your browser. Nothing is uploaded, and there is no server that could receive them.
- Chats are never saved. Only display choices are remembered on your device, plus chat ID codes and folder names if you turn on Remember my folders (turning it off, or Reset all settings, forgets them).
- The app's own files are cached so it works offline. Your chats never are.
Features
- Detects speakers in many Markdown formats, including custom names.
- Classic, White and seven soft colours, Auto, Light, Dark and Green Read modes, an optional tinted background, text size, spacing and font settings.
- Search, previous and next message, jump to start or end, and a drag handle for long chats on touch screens.
- Edit: fix text and formatting, swap or split speakers, delete messages, split a long chat into two files or save an excerpt. Your original file never changes, and saved copies say they were edited.
- Export converter for ChatGPT, Claude and Grok: follows the version of each chat you last saw, leaves out hidden thinking, and keeps every message word for word. Converted files re-open exactly, even when a story contains dialogue such as
**Name:**.
- Installs as an app (PWA). On Android, Share a
.md file or an export to it.
Edited chats are labelled, and the page always shows that it is an unofficial viewer, not a screen from any AI company. Please only edit your own chats.
Run it locally
No build step. Serve the folder with any static server, for example:
python3 -m http.server 8000
Then open http://localhost:8000. Service workers need localhost or HTTPS.
Tests
GitHub runs them on every push (see the Actions tab); the site only deploys when they pass. To run them on a computer with Node.js:
npm install
npx playwright install chromium # once, the browser the tests drive
npm test
tests/parser.test.js checks how .md text is split into messages. tests/app.test.js opens the app in an invisible Chrome and uses the made-up files in tests/fixtures (rebuild them with python3 tests/fixtures/make.py).
Files
| Path | What it is |
|---|
LICENSE | MIT licence for this app's own code |
index.html | The app: HTML, CSS and vanilla JavaScript. The parser sits between the //#parser-start and //#parser-end markers. |
sample.md | The sample chat shown on first load. It explains how to use the reader, in the reader's own chat format. Edit it to change the start screen. |
sw.js | Service worker for offline use. It caches only app files, never chats. |
manifest.webmanifest, icon-192.png, icon-512.png, icon-maskable-512.png, apple-touch-icon.png | Install-as-app support (icon-source.svg is the editable source of the icon, not deployed) |
vendor/ | marked and DOMPurify, bundled so the app works offline |
fonts/ | Figtree and JetBrains Mono (woff2) with their SIL Open Font Licence files |
.github/workflows/pages.yml | Runs the tests on every push, and deploys to GitHub Pages from main when they pass |
tests/, package.json | Automated tests (see below); tests/fixtures holds made-up exports, never real chats |
.github/screenshots/, .github/social-preview.png | README screenshots (made with sample data) and the repository's social preview image |
Licence
MIT, see LICENSE. Bundled libraries and fonts keep their own licences. The font licences are in fonts/. See the marked and DOMPurify projects for theirs.
