How to Save Your Character.AI Characters

Published October 16, 2026 · Updated October 16, 2026

Updated 16 October 2026

Short answer: Characters can be moved, but not the way most people assume. The official data export doesn't appear to carry what makes a character work — its definition. The route that does work runs through third-party exporters that read the character from the site and write a standard character card, which SillyTavern, Chub, Janitor AI and similar platforms accept. Two hard limits: a definition kept private by its creator can't be extracted at all, and no conversation history moves with the character.

First, the thing nobody tells you

A character is three different things, and they travel separately.

The definition — the written instructions that make her behave like herself. This is the character. Without it you have a name.

The conversation — everything you and she said. This is yours, and it is not part of the character at all.

The relationship — what she remembers about you. This exists only inside the platform and cannot be exported anywhere, by anyone, in any format.

People say "export my character" meaning all three. Only the first two can leave, and only under conditions.

What the official export gives you

Less than you'd hope for this purpose.

Character.AI doesn't publish what its export contains. Users who've opened the archive report three JSON files — account, characters, messages — where the character file holds the title, the name and timestamps. Greeting and description show up inconsistently; the definition generally doesn't appear at all.

That makes the official export excellent for your conversations and close to useless for rebuilding a character elsewhere. Start it anyway — it takes three to four weeks and the reasons are in the data article — but don't wait on it for this job.

The route that works

A standard format exists. It's a character card: a PNG image with the character's data written inside the file itself, and it's what the open end of this category has agreed on. SillyTavern, Chub, Janitor AI, RisuAI and others import it directly.

Third-party tools read a character from Character.AI and write it as such a card — browser extensions and web converters both exist. They read through the site under your own session, which is exactly why they can reach what the official export omits.

Then you import the file: in SillyTavern, the Characters panel, Import Character, or drag the file onto the window. Accepted: .png, .json, .yaml, .charx, .byaf. Not accepted: .jpg, .webp.

One frequent failure worth knowing in advance. If a card imports as an empty character, the image was almost certainly re-saved somewhere — opening a card in an image editor and saving it strips the embedded data. Keep the original file.

Before you install anything

These tools run under your logged-in session, which means whatever they can see, you are trusting them with. Judge them the way you'd judge anything with access to an account: published source code, a real author, reviews that aren't all five stars from the same week.

And prefer the narrowest tool that does the job. A converter that takes a public character page and returns a file is a smaller risk than an extension that sits inside your account.

What cannot be moved at all

Three things, and it's better to know now.

A private definition. Creators choose whether their character's definition is visible. If it's private, no tool extracts it — not because the tools are bad, but because the data isn't served. For characters you made yourself this doesn't apply: you can open your own definition and copy it.

The memory. What she learned about you over months lives in the platform's own storage. It is not in the card, not in the export, and it does not transfer. A moved character arrives knowing nothing about you.

The model. The same definition on a different platform produces a different character, because the model underneath differs. Expect a familiar personality with an unfamiliar voice — closer to a cover version than a copy.

If you made the characters yourself

Then you're in the best position, and the method is simpler than any tool.

Open each of your characters in Character.AI while the site still works, and copy the definition, greeting and description into a text file by hand. That's the whole asset. Any platform that lets you create a character will take that text, and you're not trusting anything with your account.

Do it now rather than later. Every one of these routes — official export, converters, copy-paste — depends on the site being up, and the company has said it will wind the platform down if the sale doesn't produce a buyer who keeps it running.

Where a card can actually land

Platforms that accept character cards are the open, user-generated end of the category: SillyTavern (runs on your own machine), Chub, Janitor AI, RisuAI. If you want your exact characters, that's where they go.

The commercial platforms — Candy AI, Nomi, DreamGF, ours — don't accept them. There's no import, and that isn't an oversight: their characters are either assembled in their own builder or written in-house, and a foreign definition has nothing to attach to.

Which means the real choice is between keeping your characters and changing what kind of product you use. Both are reasonable; they're just different.

Ours is Hot Muses Universe, and this is the interested party talking. Nothing ports in, because every Muse is written before you meet her — a backstory, a personality with edges, a gallery shot for her. If what you valued about Character.AI was the characters you built, that argument doesn't move you, and shouldn't. If what you valued was the conversation and you're tired of rebuilding, it might. Free to start, no card, 18+.

FAQ