How-to

How to move a ChatGPT conversation to Claude (or back)

You've been working in ChatGPT and want to keep going in Claude — or the other way around. There's no "transfer thread" button, but you don't need one. Here's how to carry the context across in a couple of minutes.

First, the honest truth so you don't waste time looking for a hidden setting: you cannot transfer the thread itself. ChatGPT and Claude are separate products with separate accounts and separate storage. There is no export-import that moves a live conversation from one into the other, and no "open in Claude" link.

But here's the thing — you don't actually want the thread. You want the context: the goal, the decisions, the constraints, and where you left off. That travels perfectly. You carry it across in a short summary called a handoff, pasted as the first message in the other assistant.

Why the assistant doesn't need the whole history

The other assistant was never in the original conversation, so a raw transcript just means it has to re-read hundreds of lines to reconstruct what mattered. A focused handoff hands it the conclusions directly — which is faster and sharper.

The steps

This works in either direction — ChatGPT to Claude, or Claude to ChatGPT. The mechanics are identical.

Capture the goal. In one or two sentences, what are you trying to produce or decide? This anchors the new assistant on the real objective.
Capture the locked decisions. Everything you've already settled — approach, tone, format, choices you don't want reopened. Write them as firm statements.
Capture the constraints. The rules that kept coming up: audience, length, must-haves, things to avoid.
Capture the current state. What's done, what's in progress, and the immediate next step.
Paste it as the first message in the other assistant, then ask your next question and continue as normal.

The handoff template

Fill this in from your existing chat, then paste it as message one in Claude (or ChatGPT). It's assistant-agnostic — the wording works in either.

You're continuing a piece of work I started in another assistant.
Here's the full context so you can pick it up cleanly.

GOAL
- [What we're trying to produce or decide, in 1-2 sentences.]

DECISIONS ALREADY LOCKED (do not reopen)
- [Decision 1]
- [Decision 2]

CONSTRAINTS (always respect)
- [Constraint 1]
- [Constraint 2]

CURRENT STATE
- Done: [what's finished]
- In progress: [what's mid-way]
- Next step: [what to do now]

Confirm you've understood, then help me with the next step.

That's it. The new assistant now has everything it needs to continue as if it had been there the whole time — often with a fresh perspective, since you're getting a second model's take on the same problem.

One thing to keep in mind

ChatGPT and Claude have different styles and strengths, so the tone of the replies may shift when you switch. If a specific format or voice matters to you, put it in the constraints section of the handoff — that's exactly what it's for.

The faster way

Let Uncook write the handoff for you

Free & unlimited. No account.

Uncook works from a ChatGPT or a Claude share link, and produces a handoff you can paste into either. Paste your share link, Uncook reads the whole conversation and writes a clean reboot prompt — goal, locked decisions, repeated constraints and current state, already assembled. Skim it, paste it into the other assistant, and keep going.

Uncook my chat →

Honest about your data: pasted text is analyzed in your browser; a share link is fetched once through our server to read the conversation, then discarded — never stored, never used for training. A share link makes the chat viewable by anyone with the URL; un-share it once you're done.