Export and privacy

What it is

This page answers two questions that keep arriving together: "how do I get my conversations out?" and "what am I actually storing about my visitors?"

The short answers:

• There is no bulk transcript export. No "download all chats as CSV" button exists in the dashboard. You read threads in place, and copy out anything you need by hand.
• You control what gets collected, mostly through lead capture, before the chatbot ever replies.
• Customers can be exported. People and their captured details are a separate feature from transcripts, and that one does have a CSV.

If your deployment sets a retention window, conversations older than it are deleted automatically — which turns "I'll export it later" into a problem. The Conversations tab shows a notice with the number of days when a window is in force.

When you would use it

• Someone asks for a copy of the chat history.
• You are deciding what the chatbot may collect before you go live.
• A visitor asks what you hold about them, or asks to be forgotten.
• You are leaving the product and want to know what happens to the data.

Where to find it

Open Dashboard → Chatbots → your chatbot → Conversations for the threads, and Settings → Customer data (?tab=customer-data) for what gets collected.

Getting data out — what exists and what does not

Data	Bulk export?	How to get it
Conversation transcripts	No	Read in the dashboard; select and copy the text you need
Session identifiers	No file	Copy the session ID from the transcript header
Customers and their captured details	Yes, CSV	Export customers
Analytics	Charted, not downloadable as transcripts	Dashboard KPIs
Anything programmatic	Owner-only API	Personal access tokens

The session ID on each transcript is the right thing to quote in an internal ticket: it identifies the conversation exactly without copying the customer's words into another system.

If you genuinely need transcripts in bulk and regularly, the API is the supported path — it is owner-only and requires a token, so it is a deliberate integration rather than a button. See API host and no prefix.

What you are storing, and where you control it

Conversation content. Everything typed on both sides, plus timing, confidence, and the sources used. This is unavoidable — it is the product. What you can control is how long it lives, via retention, and whether the chatbot invites people to type sensitive things in the first place.

Visitor identity. Only if your own site passes it in. An anonymous website visitor stays anonymous. See Name visitors on the widget.

Lead capture. This is the big one, and it is entirely your choice. On Settings → Customer data you decide whether to ask for details before the first reply, which fields, which are required, and what privacy notice appears. Turn it off and you store no contact details at all. See Lead capture fields and Collect visitor details.

Practical privacy rules

Ask for the least you need. Every optional field is data you have to protect and eventually delete. An email address is usually enough; a phone number, a company, and a job title on a first visit are usually not.

Write a real privacy notice. The lead-capture form shows one. Say what you will use the details for and link your own privacy policy.

Do not put secrets into the chatbot. Not in Test Chatbot, not in instructions, not in a knowledge document. Anything you paste is stored and is readable by every teammate with access to that chatbot. That includes API keys, passwords, and customer records you were only shown once.

Instruct the chatbot to refuse sensitive input. If your visitors might volunteer card numbers or medical details, add an instruction telling it not to ask for or repeat them. See Write instructions.

Remember teammates can read everything. Anyone with permission to view conversations on a chatbot sees every thread on it, including your test chats. Grant the narrowest role that works — see Roles and permissions.

Deleting data

There is no per-message or per-email eraser on the transcript. Your available tools, from smallest to largest:

1. Anonymise a customer — removes the identifying details of one person while leaving your aggregate numbers intact. See Anonymize a customer.
2. Turn off lead capture — stops collecting anything new from that point.
3. Delete the chatbot — takes its conversations and captured customers with it, permanently. See Delete a chatbot.
4. Delete your account — removes the whole workspace after a grace period during which signing in cancels it. See Delete your account.
5. Retention — if your deployment sets a window, old conversations are pruned automatically without anyone clicking anything.

For a subject-access or erasure request, work from the most specific tool that satisfies it: anonymise the customer record first, and reach for deleting a whole chatbot only when the request genuinely requires it.

Steps

1. Open Conversations, filter to what you need, and open threads with View details.
2. Copy any text you must keep. Copy the session ID rather than the transcript when you only need a reference.
3. Open Settings → Customer data and review lead capture: is it on, which fields, and does the privacy notice say something true?
4. Turn off any field you do not actively use.
5. For contact details in bulk, use the customers CSV export rather than the transcripts.
6. Check the Conversations tab for a retention notice, and plan around that window if there is one.

What you will see

Conversations have a copyable session ID and no download control. Customer data is a settings tab with the lead form and its consent copy. Where retention is enabled, an information notice at the top of the conversations list states the number of days and warns that older conversations are deleted automatically.

Limits and plan notes

Reading conversations needs permission to view them. The customers CSV export needs the customers permission, and it is recorded in the customer's own timeline. Developer API access is owner-only.

Members only ever see the account they have switched into. Deleting the owner's account takes that workspace's conversations with it once the grace period expires.

Common problems

I cannot find Download CSV on Conversations.

It is not there. Copy from the transcript, use the customers export for contact details, or use the API for a real integration.

A visitor asked to be forgotten.

Anonymise their customer record, stop collecting the field that identified them, and — only if the request truly requires it — delete the chatbot that holds the thread. There is no per-email eraser on transcripts.

Are my Test Chatbot conversations private?

Visitors never see them, but they are stored like any other conversation and every teammate with conversation access can read them. Do not use Test Chatbot as a scratchpad for sensitive text.

Does pausing the chatbot delete its chats?

No. Pausing only closes the public door. Deleting the chatbot is what removes its conversations. See Activate or pause a chatbot.

My old conversations disappeared.

Check the retention notice at the top of the conversations list. If a window is set, older conversations are pruned automatically.