Windows Command Line Help

Windows users who are not used to command line (terminal) tools like ChatKeeper might run into some issues that seem really confusing. You’re most likely not doing anything wrong at all - it’s just a type of tool you’re not used to. I originally wrote ChatKeeper for myself, and I’m nerdy and comfortable with that sort of tool. But most are not.

If ChatKeeper is giving you this sorts of trouble, then that’s on me, and I’m sorry for the inconvenience. This page is here to help. And I’m actively working on a GUI (Windowed) version right now.

There are two main “gotchas” for Windows Users:

  1. When I launch ChatKeeper, a window appears and then disappears immediately!
  2. When I launch ChatKeeper from the command line, Windows says it doesn’t recognize the command!

When I launch ChatKeeper, a window appears and then disappears immediately!

This is really common. You might have opened your Downloads folder in File Manager and double-clicked on chatkeeper.exe to launch it, or maybe you clicked Open File directly in your browser after downloading.

What’s happening here is:

  1. ChatKeeper is being launched, with no arguments telling it what to do.
  2. Without any arguments provided, ChatKeeper provides help text that explains what it needs…
  3. Windows opens a window to show its output.
  4. …and then ChatKeeper ends the program.
  5. Windows sees that the program has finished, so it “helpfully” closes the window immediately.

The fix:

Run ChatKeeper from the command prompt:

  1. Open the start menu or press the Windows key on your keyboard
  2. Type cmd.  As soon as you start typing, “Command Prompt” will appear in the results.
  3. Press Enter - this will open a command prompt in the default folder for your username.
  4. If you just downloaded ChatKeeper to your Downloads directory, type “cd Downloads” at the prompt and press Enter - this should put you in your Downloads directory.
  5. Type chatkeeper and press Enter and you should now see the help text that was disappearing quickly.

You are now ready to run ChatKeeper!

You can run a “dry run” that won’t create any files by typing chatkeeper keep LONG_ZIP_FILENAME  test_export --verbose --dryrun and pressing Enter (of course, replacing LONG_ZIP_FILENAME with the full name of your ChatGPT export .zip). See the Command Line Helper for help tailoring the command to your exact needs.

When I launch ChatKeeper from the command line, Windows says it doesn’t recognize the command!

This is also common and can happen when chatkeeper.exe is in one folder and your command prompt is running in another folder.

Windows (and other operating systems) use a setting known as the PATH in order to find commands. The PATH is just a list of folder to try, in order, when it needs to find a command that you type. Your Downloads folder is typically not in your path, so if you’re not already in there when you type the command, Windows won’t find it (“unrecognized command”).

The best solution here is to:

  1. (optional) Move chatkeeper.exe to any permanent location you would like it to be.
  2. Update your PATH to include that folder (or to include your Downloads folder if you didn’t move it).

This article can help you to change that setting so that you can run ChatKeeper from a command prompt running in any folder on your computer.

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