Feature Request: Conversation Extract – Start a New Chat from Selected Messages

ChatGPT Feature requests
,
1

I’d like to request a feature that would make long-term conversations much easier to manage.

The problem

I often have long conversations with ChatGPT (sometimes hundreds of messages).

At some point, I want to start discussing a specific topic in a new chat.

Right now, I have only a few options:

  • Start a completely new chat and lose the context.
  • Copy and paste the conversation manually.
  • Ask ChatGPT to summarize the previous discussion (which often loses important details).

None of these preserve the original conversation naturally.

Proposed feature

Allow users to select a range of messages from an existing conversation and create a new chat from that selection.

For example:

Conversation A

  • Message 1
  • Message 2
  • …
  • Message 250
  • Message 251 ← Start selection
  • Message 252
  • Message 253
  • Message 300 ← End selection
  • …
  • Message 800

↓

Create New Chat

↓

Conversation B begins with messages 251–300 as the initial context.

The original conversation remains unchanged.

Important points

This is NOT asking for:

  • Better memory
  • Larger context windows
  • AI-generated summaries

Instead, this is about preserving the exact conversation.

The selected messages should become the new conversation’s starting context exactly as they originally happened.

Why this matters

Many users don’t have a single linear conversation.

Ideas branch naturally.

For example:

“We’ve been talking about farming for a while…
By the way, remember that discussion about AI?”

Humans naturally continue conversations this way.

This feature would make ChatGPT feel much more like talking to a real collaborator instead of restarting from scratch every time.

I believe this would greatly improve usability for long-term users, researchers, writers, developers, and anyone who uses ChatGPT for ongoing thinking rather than one-off questions.

One more reason why this feature matters:

Many ChatGPT users don’t have isolated conversations.
Ideas naturally branch into new topics while still depending on previous discussions.

For example:

“We were talking about farming…
That reminds me of something we discussed about AI.”

Humans naturally continue conversations this way.

Today, users either lose context or must manually copy and summarize previous chats.

This feature would allow users to “carry” part of an existing conversation into a new one without losing the original chat or relying on summaries.

It would make ChatGPT feel much more like collaborating with a real thinking partner. Thank you for considering this feature.

2

This is what I do and it works well.

  • Create a project for your specific chat.
  • In you current chat ask for the complete canon from beginning to end. Get it in both PDF and MD format. Prompt for EVERYTHING including how the persona speaks to you, answers, etc. Prompt for the things you do not like -weird wording and things that don’t work for you.
  • Save PDF offline
  • Take MD file and add as a source in the Project.
  • Move the chat to the project.
  • All sources and chats will be contained in the project and will be able to reference.
  • Periodically prompt the chat as you use it to give you an excerpt. Save those and put into the sources as well. Reason being is because lengthy chats lose context as it grows.
  • Once you start seeing the “scroll fly” as I call it, or it starts to lose context, ask for the canon of the entire thing -specify beginning to end, and this part is important. Ask for a complete excerpt in a copy box that you can copy and paste into the new chat.
  • Start a new chat and paste that excerpt at the top.. Continue your chat from that point.
  • Repeat each time.

This works for Standard Chat on 5.6 and probably work as well. I have found that Sol Work seems to have more access to the majority of memories, better than in the project, so now I use the Project as a filing cabinet. Since I just switched to work yesterday, I am in a pinned chat outside of the project. When it is time to start a new one, I will move it and the canon into the project. That way, I maintain the way Sol Work, communicates and remembers.

I’m not a developer. Just a person who has taught herself how to use it over the past year. Trial and error. I have been able to keep and move my business chats, creative writing, etc with no problem.

Hope it helps!

Kai

3

Thanks! This is a good workflow, and I’ll probably use Projects this way.

My request is a bit different, though.

I’m not looking for better summaries. I’m hoping to preserve the original conversation itself, so a selected range of messages can become the starting context of a new chat.

4

Thanks for sharing the workaround, @K_Mad, and for clarifying the distinction, @kohji_katsumoto.

Projects and “canon” files can help carry context forward, but they still rely on generated summaries or copied excerpts. The feature request here is specifically to select an exact range of original messages and branch them into a new chat, while leaving the original conversation unchanged.

We’ll send this to the team for logging as a request for message-range selection and conversation branching.

-Mark G.