ChatShell troubleshooting

Try these in order:

1. Look for a new browser tab called “Welcome to ChatShell”. The first time you use ChatShell (or after you withdraw consent in About → Privacy and data), it opens that tab instead of the export window. Click “Agree and start using ChatShell”, go back to ChatGPT and click again.
2. Reload the chatgpt.com tab. Tabs that were open before you installed or updated ChatShell do not have it yet. If you see “Unable to open ChatShell. Refresh the page and try again.”, reloading is the fix.
3. Make sure the address is chatgpt.com. ChatShell does not run on other sites.
4. Open a conversation first. ChatShell says “Please open a conversation first” if none is selected.
5. Open chrome://extensions and check ChatShell is switched on. In an Incognito window, extensions only work if you allow them there.

The button is a round shell icon on the right edge of the page, roughly halfway down. If you dragged it to a screen edge it docks there and partly hides; hover over the edge to reveal it, or drag it back. Reload the chatgpt.com tab if it is missing entirely. You do not need the button: clicking the ChatShell toolbar icon, or pressing the shortcut, opens the same window.

1. The suggested shortcut is Alt+Shift+E (Windows, Linux) or Option+Shift+E (Mac). Chrome does not assign a suggested shortcut if another extension already uses it.
2. Open chrome://extensions/shortcuts (Edge: edge://extensions/shortcuts, Brave: brave://extensions/shortcuts), find ChatShell and check which key is set. Click the field and press the combination you want to set your own.
3. Click once on the page so the browser window has focus, then press the shortcut. It works like clicking the toolbar icon, so on a first run it opens the Welcome tab, and on another website it opens or switches to chatgpt.com.
4. If it still fails, use the round button on the page or the toolbar icon, and tell us your browser and operating system.

1. Wait for the progress message to finish (for PDF: “Generating PDF…”, then “Saving PDF…”). A message that the file was exported successfully means ChatShell has handed it to your browser.
2. Open chrome://downloads. If the file is listed, click “Show in folder”. Check chrome://settings/downloads for the save location.
3. If “Ask where to save each file before downloading” is on, a save dialog may be hidden behind the browser window.
4. Look at the right end of the address bar for a blocked-download icon and allow downloads for chatgpt.com. Company-managed browsers and antivirus tools can also block downloads.
5. Very long PDFs (over 1,000 messages or about 1,000,000 characters) are split into parts and delivered in a single .zip file, so look for a .zip instead of a .pdf.
6. Check whether you hit the free monthly limit (see below). Try Markdown to find out whether the problem is specific to PDF.

1. Long chats with many images take longer. Keep the ChatGPT tab open until it finishes. To speed up PDF export, turn off “Include images in export” in the PDF options.
2. If you see “Fetch failed, using page data”, ChatShell could not load the full chat from ChatGPT and used what the page shows. Reload the tab and export again.
3. PDFs in Korean, Arabic, Hebrew and some other scripts can need fonts fetched from cdn.jsdelivr.net. If your network or an ad blocker blocks that address, those characters may be missing.
4. For huge chats, Markdown or JSON are the fastest formats.

The Free plan includes 3 PDF exports and 5 exports in other formats per calendar month. The allowance resets at the start of the next month. Standard and Pro have no monthly export limit. Batch export is Pro only (“Batch export requires Pro”).

1. In ChatShell open Account, paste the key into “Enter License Key” and click Activate. Copy the key without spaces or line breaks.
2. “Invalid license key format” or “Invalid license” means the key was mistyped or is incomplete. Copy it again from the email.
3. “License verification failed, please try again” usually means the license server could not be reached. Check your connection and try again in a minute.
4. If you reinstalled ChatShell in the same browser profile, enter the same key again; ChatShell tries to restore the earlier activation first.
5. Still failing? Email support@chatshellexport.com with the exact message and the email you paid with. Never send the full key in a public place.

1. Wait a few minutes and refresh your inbox. After checkout, the payment confirmation can take a short while before the license email is created and sent.
2. Check spam, junk and Promotions folders, and search for “ChatShell” or “license”.
3. The email goes to the address you typed at checkout. Check any other address you might have used.
4. If it still has not arrived, email billing@chatshellexport.com with the checkout email address and the payment date.

A license key can only be active on a limited number of devices or browser profiles. ChatShell has no button to remove an old device yet, so email support@chatshellexport.com, tell us which device you no longer use, and we will help. See activation and billing.

1. Checkout is run by our payment provider, Creem, and shows what it needs before you confirm. If your card is declined, try another card, or contact your bank.
2. Standard monthly includes the first month free with code CHATSHELL, applied at checkout. The educator code EDU20 is for Standard and Pro annual plans only: switch the pricing toggle to Annual, then enter the code at checkout. It does not apply to monthly plans.
3. If the code is rejected or payment still fails, email billing@chatshellexport.com with a screenshot of the checkout page and the plan you chose.