How it works

1. Open chatgpt.com, click your profile picture, then Settings.
2. Open Data controls. Next to Export data, click Export, then confirm.
3. OpenAI emails you a download link. It can take from a few minutes up to 7 days, and the link expires 24 hours after it arrives, so download it the same day.
4. Unzip the download. Inside is conversations.json.
5. In IdeaSweeper, open Intake and drop conversations.json on the drop zone.

Business and Enterprise workspaces cannot export this way; a personal Free, Plus or Pro account can. Source: OpenAI help.

1. On claude.ai or the Claude desktop app, click your initials in the lower left, then Settings.
2. Open Privacy and click Export data. The phone apps do not have this button.
3. Anthropic emails you a download link, usually within minutes. It expires after 24 hours.
4. Unzip it and drop conversations.json into IdeaSweeper. It tells Claude's file apart from ChatGPT's on its own.

On a Team or Enterprise plan, an owner has to switch exports on first. Source: Claude help.

1. Open Google Takeout and click Deselect all.
2. Scroll to My Activity and tick it. Click All activity data included, deselect everything, and tick only Gemini Apps.
3. Click Multiple formats on the My Activity row and switch Activity records from HTML to JSON. This step matters: the default HTML file cannot be read.
4. Click Next step, then Create export. Google emails you when it is ready.
5. Unzip it. The file is usually at Takeout/My Activity/Gemini Apps/MyActivity.json. Drop it into IdeaSweeper.

Work and school accounts sometimes hide the Gemini Apps option; that is an admin setting. Source: Gemini help.

Half your ideas never made it into a chat: they are folders you started. IdeaSweeper reads folder names and which marker files exist (a Git folder, package.json, deploy settings) to tell what you started and what shipped. It never opens your files.

In Chrome or Edge (no install)

1. In IdeaSweeper, open Intake and click Scan a folder.
2. Pick the folder that holds your projects, for example C:\Users\you\Projects or C:\dev. Each folder inside it becomes a card.
3. Your browser asks once whether IdeaSweeper may view the folder. It can only read; it cannot change anything.

In any other browser

Download the project scanner (a small Python script), then run it with the folders you want scanned:

python scan_projects.py C:\Users\you\Projects C:\dev

It writes c_drive_metadata.json next to it. Drop that file into IdeaSweeper.

If you build with Claude Code or Codex, every session you ever started is saved on your computer. IdeaSweeper turns each session's opening request into a card, so the app you asked an agent to build at 2am is on your board too.

Claude Code

1. In IdeaSweeper, open Intake and click Connect an agent.
2. In the folder picker, paste this into the address bar and press Enter: %USERPROFILE%\.claude\projects (on a Mac: ~/.claude/projects, press Cmd+Shift+G to type a path).
3. Click Select folder. Each session becomes a card that names the project folder it ran in.

Codex

1. Same button, but pick %USERPROFILE%\.codex\sessions (on a Mac: ~/.codex/sessions).

Only the first request and the folder name of each session are read. Tool output, code and the rest of the conversation stay where they are.

• Statuses: Not Started, In Progress and Deployed. Folder scans set them from evidence; change any card from its menu.
• Folders and tags: make 3 to 5 folders in the sidebar (Courses, Local services, Software tools). Then file cards by hand or with Sort with AI.
• Duplicates: the merge tray pairs ideas that look the same. Merge them, or dismiss the pair for good.
• Re-import any time: drop next month's export and only new chats are added. Your filing survives.
• Back up: Export saves the whole workspace as one file; Import restores it on any computer.

Try it on the demo board