You Can Now Import Your Data From ChatGPT to Claude for Free.
Anthropic is taking steps to simplify the transition to Claude. While this AI-powered chatbot app is popular among developers and programmers, it’s also notorious for hiding its more advanced features behind a paywall (and limiting the number of requests for free users). But now Claude is finally catching up to ChatGPT and making its memory feature available to free users.
This move follows Claude overtaking ChatGPT in the App Store to become the most downloaded free app in the US , so the timing is perfect. As for the reason behind the sudden interest in the app, OpenAI recently announced a partnership with the US Department of Defense (informally known as the Department of War), a day after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei expressed concerns about the unrestricted use of AI by governments.
Along with the new free memory feature, Claude is also introducing a free import tool that will help you transfer your AI context when migrating from other chatbots. Technically, this is more of a step-by-step guide for importing data into other bots, but the idea is to help new users avoid the “blank slate” syndrome. Theoretically, within 24 hours of using the tool, Claude will know all the personal data you previously shared with the imported chatbots, including special instructions, your career, and current projects, making it easier to communicate with Claude.
How to enable memory in Claude for free
While Claude’s Memories feature is available for free to all users, it’s not enabled by default. Let’s fix that. Open the Claude website or app, tap your profile icon, and go to Settings . Here, under Features , you’ll see a new section called Memories at the top. Turn on the Create Memories from Chat History feature. Now Claude will automatically remember key details in your life as you share them. According to Anthropic , Claude “will automatically summarize your conversations and create a synthesis of key moments from your entire chat history (excluding chats in projects). This synthesis is updated every 24 hours and provides context for each new individual conversation.”
Let’s say you’re a dentist and you ask Claude for information about implants; the next time you ask a similar question, the system will recognize that you’re specifically researching implants.
Of course, this means Claude will also begin remembering your personal data, or at least your personal context. Claude offers a few ways around this. If you try disabling memories (from the same menu where you enabled them), you’ll see two other options. As a less drastic workaround, you can use the “Pause Memory” option to stop the chatbot from creating new memories while preserving the current ones. Or you can select the “Reset Memory” option to permanently delete all memories, including those related to a specific project. This way, you can manually delete what Claude knows about you from time to time.
While in the Memory settings, you can also use the new import feature. Click the “Start Import” button to open a new menu. At the top, you’ll see a hint you need to copy. Then, paste it into ChatGPT or Gemini to access those bots’ memories. The results will be saved as a Markdown file. Back in Claude, paste the Markdown file into the text field below the copied hint and click “Add to Memory.” Claude will process the file and add the data to its memory file.