Switching From Character.AI: How to Back Up Your Chats and Where People Are Going

Adults only. Most of the apps in this guide are built for adults, and every one that states an age rule sets full access at 18 or older. This guide is non-explicit.

How this guide was made. This is a documentation-based guide. Facts come from Character.AI’s help centre and blog, and from the official terms, pricing pages and docs of each alternative, read on 18 and 19 October 2026. We have not used paid accounts on any of these services, and we do not rank them. Where a page did not answer a question, we say so.

Why people are switching right now

On 12 October 2026, Character.AI announced a voluntary Chapter 11 process to sell the company. Its blog says the platform “remains up and running”, but also that it “will be wound down” if no bid keeps it operating. The sale is expected to finish in late November or early December 2026. Our guide to what the sale means for your chats, data and subscription covers the court dates.

That announcement turned a slow trickle of people leaving into a rush, and the rush is not going smoothly. In the top posts on r/CharacterAI this weekend, the mood was less “where next” and more “nothing fits”:

• One widely upvoted post described four days of trying other platforms with no luck. The writer’s complaints about the alternatives were specific: tight message limits, services that charge per generated message, and expensive plans that promise to unlock models and then disappoint.
• Another user had already moved their characters and chat logs into a separate frontend to test different models, and found it hard to get the same tone as the free chat style they had grown attached to.
• A third post simply listed the retired Character.AI chat styles the writer hoped would come back.

Those three complaints are the whole problem in miniature. Character.AI’s free, unlimited text chat with a huge community library is unusual, and its chat styles are its own. Switching means accepting a trade. This guide is about making that trade deliberately: back up first, then choose by need.

Step 1: Back up before you go anywhere

Do this today, even if you have not decided to leave. The export clock is long and the download window is short.

Request the data export

Character.AI’s help centre, updated 8 October 2026, gives these steps:

• Web: Profile, then Profile Settings, then Account, then Manage Account & Data, then Export Data. A pop-up confirms that you will receive an email with a download link.
• Mobile app: Profile, then the Settings icon, then Legal & Privacy, then Export Data. A “Success” banner appears once the request is in.

Two timings matter. The article says the export “may take 3-4 weeks to complete”, and that the link “will be valid for 7 days from the time the email is sent”. So request it now, watch the inbox attached to your account (including spam), and download the file the day it arrives. The help centre does not describe the file format, so we cannot tell you what you will be able to do with it beyond keeping it.

Copy what the export may not give you in a usable form

While you wait, save the things you would need to rebuild elsewhere:

1. Character definitions. Open each character you made, copy the name, greeting, description and definition fields into a plain text file. This is the single most portable thing you own.
2. Personas. Copy the persona text you use for yourself in stories.
3. Pinned memories and Lorebook entries. Pins are how you told the character what mattered. Copy them.
4. Favourite chats. For the handful that matter most, copy the text or print the page to PDF. It is slow, and it works.

Do not delete yet

The help centre says account deletion “is permanent and cannot be reversed”. Delete only after the export has arrived and you have opened it. Cancelling c.ai+ is a separate action, handled wherever you bought it; our guide to cancelling an AI subscription explains each route.

Step 2: Decide what you are actually replacing

People who say “nothing compares” are usually comparing on everything at once. Split it up. Here is what Character.AI gives you, as its own pages describe it, and what to look for elsewhere.

Write down your top two. No app wins on all seven.

Step 3: Where people are going, by need

“I want one companion with voice and images, and I am an adult”: Candy AI

Candy AI is the opposite shape from Character.AI. Instead of a library of thousands of community bots, it centres on companions you choose or build, with chat, voice, generated images and video. Its terms say free users can send about 5 messages, after which you need a plan. Paid plans give unlimited text and a monthly allowance of tokens (generally 100) for images and voice.

Prices on the official subscriptions page on 18 October 2026: 12 months at $3.99 a month (billed $47.88), 3 months at $8.99 a month (billed $26.97), or 1 month at $9.99, then $13.99 a month. Refunds are limited to 24 hours, card payments only, and refused if more than 20 tokens were used. Tokens expire at the end of each billing period.

Fits if you are leaving because you wanted a deeper one-to-one companion with media, and you are happy to pay from day one. Does not fit if you want to browse other people’s characters for free. Read our Candy AI review for the billing and privacy detail.

“I want a big community library with content ratings”: CrushOn AI

CrushOn AI keeps the library model. Each character carries a rating (Filtered, Unfiltered or 18+), it saves memories and auto-summarises older ones, and “profile cards” work as personas. Group chat runs up to 5 characters, for subscribers only. Viewing sensitive content requires confirming you are 18, and the site shows an age verification flow run by Didit.

Its pricing page lists Free, Standard, Premium and Deluxe plans, but the prices did not render in the version of the page we could read on 18 or 19 October 2026, so they are unknown here. Check them on the site before you decide. Our Candy AI vs CrushOn AI comparison sets the two side by side.

“I want published memory sizes and a cheap way in”: SpicyChat

SpicyChat is the most transparent app here about limits. Its docs list context sizes by tier (4K tokens on the entry plan, 8K on the middle plan, up to 32K on the top plan), persona slots by tier, and group chats of 2 to 10 bots for free and paid users. Its pricing FAQ says prices changed on 8 September 2026: Get A Taste $5.95 a month ($60.00 a year), True Supporter $19.95 ($199.95), I’m All In $29.95 ($299.95). All users must be 18 or older under its community guidelines.

Two cautions. The docs say there is no native iOS app, and the Android app is an APK downloaded from SpicyChat’s own site, outside Google Play. And its pricing FAQ does not state what the free tier’s message limit is.

“I want to build my own characters, with images and video”: Nectar AI

Nectar AI’s homepage describes an HD companion creator, AI roleplay chat, image and video generation, group chats and video calls. Its terms (version 2.2, revised 15 August 2026) name Nectar AI in Dover, Delaware, and Lick Labs Ltd in London. Three clauses matter for switchers: users under 18 “may only access SFW content areas and features”; both Free and Pro users have rate limits; and paid fees are “non-refundable” except where the law requires. You can delete your account at any time through the app or site.

We could not get prices: the pricing page rendered without any plan figures for us on 19 October 2026, so check it directly. The privacy policy (updated 28 January 2026) lists messages among the content collected and does not say whether chats are used for training.

“I want control over the model”: Janitor AI, Chub AI or a SillyTavern setup

This is the route the Reddit user who moved their chat logs into a “different frontend” took. It gives you the most control and the most work.

• Janitor AI is 18+ under its terms (8 October 2026). Its help centre says its in-house model reads around 8,000 to 9,000 tokens of context, and the terms allow you to connect your own API proxy. Its mobile app has adult content off by default.
• Chub AI calls itself uncensored in its own docs and supports several model APIs, with its own subscription tiers.
• SillyTavern is self-hosted software, not a service. Its docs say exported chats use a JSONL format that can be re-imported, that plain-text exports cannot, and that chats can be imported from TavernAI, Text Generation WebUI, Agnai, KoboldAI Lite and RisuAI. For Character.AI, the docs point to a third-party browser extension, CAI Tools. That extension is not made by Character.AI or by SillyTavern, so treat it as unofficial and read what it asks permission to do.

The Reddit post about replacing the “vibe” of a particular chat style is the honest warning here: once you pick your own model, the tone is yours to tune, and no model is a drop-in copy of another.

“I want one long-term companion”: Kindroid or Nomi

Both are built around companions you design, with long-term memory, voice and selfies. Kindroid’s FAQ says its free Lite model and unlimited free messaging were retired on 1 October 2026, so free accounts now get a one-time preview and then become read-only; Standard is $15.99 a month on the App Store. Nomi’s homepage says it is free to start with no credit card, and the Standard plan is $15.99 on the App Store. Neither has a public character library like Character.AI’s.

The honest comparison (checked 18 and 19 October 2026)

“Unknown” means the official pages we read did not show it, not that it does not exist.

What you will lose, whatever you pick

• Free unlimited text. Every app above either caps free messages or does not publish the cap. Budget a monthly price. Our subscription calculator turns a monthly figure into a yearly one.
• The library. Only CrushOn AI, SpicyChat, Janitor AI and Chub AI have a comparable community catalogue. Candy AI, Nectar AI, Kindroid and Nomi expect you to build.
• The chat styles. They are Character.AI’s models. No app offers “the same but elsewhere”.
• Memory you built up. Pins and Lorebook entries do not transfer. You will be re-teaching a new character who you are, which is why copying your persona and pins now saves weeks later.

Before you paste old chats into a new app

Your export is personal. Before uploading or pasting it anywhere, read the destination’s privacy notice. Candy AI’s says third-party LLM providers may receive the content of your messages, and that de-identified interactions may be used to train its models. Nectar AI’s does not say either way. Our AI companion privacy checklist is a ten-minute read that covers the questions to ask.

A five-step switching plan

1. Request the Character.AI export now (3 to 4 weeks; 7-day link).
2. Copy your character definitions, personas and pins into a text file this week.
3. Pick your top two needs from the table and shortlist two apps.
4. Use free tiers or the shortest plan first. A monthly plan is easier to walk away from than an annual one.
5. Keep your Character.AI account until the export has landed and the sale outcome is known.

If you want a shortcut on step 3, the companion matcher asks about these priorities. If you write your own characters, the roleplay studio helps you draft a character sheet you can reuse on any of these platforms.

What we could not confirm

• The format and contents of the Character.AI export file.
• Current prices for CrushOn AI and Nectar AI; both pricing pages rendered without figures for us.
• SpicyChat’s free-tier message limit.
• Whether any of these apps plans an official Character.AI import. None mentioned one on the pages we read.

For how we source and date guides like this, see how AITried reviews AI products. For the wider field, including Chai, Replika, Talkie and PolyBuzz, see Character AI alternatives in 2026.