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Perplexity
Updated Sep 28, 2026
Perplexity is an AI search engine: you ask it a question, it answers with citations, and every one of those threads is saved against your account. Getting them out takes one button on the account details page, and the whole history comes back by email. No request form, no waiting a month for somebody to answer a letter. Worth taking before the threads age out of your own memory as well as the site.
What you'll get
Thread HistorySpacesAccount & Profile DataSettings
Before you start
- Go straight to perplexity.ai/account/details. This is the one shortcut worth taking, because the export control lives on that page rather than behind a menu you have to find.
- Look at the System section while you are there. The Delete button sits in the same place as the Export button, which is deliberate on their part and worth being careful about.
- If you are planning to close the account, export first. Deleting the account is not reversible and it takes the threads with it.
How to download
- Click Export my data.
- Wait for the email with the download link. There is a gap of a few days between clicking and receiving it, and the message lands in the inbox on the account, so check spam.
- Download the ZIP as soon as it arrives. The link is short-lived, and Perplexity does not publish how long it lasts.
- Unpack it and have a look. Perplexity has never documented what is inside, so this is the only way to know.
Pro tip
A lot of writing about this still says you have to email a data request and wait thirty days. That advice is out of date. Perplexity documents a self-serve export button, it takes one click, and the archive turns up by email. If a page tells you to file a formal request, it was written before the button existed.
After the download
- The threads are the point. Every search you ever ran, with the answer it gave you at the time, which is a considerably more interesting record than it sounds like once you go back and read it.
- Perplexity does not publish a file manifest, so take a few minutes to look at what you actually got. This has changed without notice before.
- Exporting does not switch anything off. Model training and data retention are separate settings, both on by default on the cheaper plans, and leaving them alone means the export you just made is already out of date.
- There is also an export button inside an individual thread, which is worth knowing about when you want one specific conversation rather than the lot.
- Store the archive in ProtonDrive or pCloud for an off-site backup