Backup (preview)

Conversation vault

The conversation vault keeps AI conversations you choose to save in an encrypted SQZ repository, and connects it to Claude, ChatGPT or Codex through MCP, so an assistant can find and read them again when you ask. It lives in the SQZ Backup app, under Connect your AI.

In a minute#

What it is. A connector (MCP) between your AI assistant and an encrypted SQZ repository on your own computer.
What it's for. Long-term memory you control: save a conversation once, then find it and pick it up again in any later chat, even months on.
What it can do. Save conversations you point to, search them by words, read them back. Nothing else. No delete, no browsing of your chat history.
Who can read it. You, and the assistant while you keep the connection open. The hosted relay only passes text through in memory.

Early preview

The vault is new. Connecting Claude to the hosted relay has been tried end to end on a real Windows computer: saving, searching and reading a conversation, and saving an image and PDFs, all worked. ChatGPT and Codex have been tried live for saving and searching text conversations. Saving images and PDFs has so far only been tried in Claude. The Connect your AI page is in the current SQZ Backup installer on the download page. Keep another copy of anything you can't afford to lose.

What it does#

Once connected, the assistant gets six tools:

Tool	What it does
`save_conversation`	Saves messages you asked it to save, with a title. Saving the same messages twice doesn't make a second copy.
`search_conversations`	Finds saved conversations whose title, summary or text contain all the words you give. An empty search lists them.
`retrieve_conversation`	Reads a saved conversation back, a page at a time for long ones.
`prepare_file_upload`	Claude only: gives a one-time upload link, valid 5 minutes, so it can send an attached image or PDF straight to the relay.
`save_file`	ChatGPT only: saves an attached image or PDF.
`retrieve_file`	Reads back a saved file's name, description and, for a PDF, its text.

The assistant saves only what you ask it to save, and can't see your chat history on its own. It can't delete anything.

Set it up#

Create your vault. Open SQZ Backup, choose Connect your AI, pick a password of at least 8 characters and click Create vault. The app shows a recovery key once: keep it somewhere safe, away from the computer. Either the password or the recovery key unlocks the vault. Without both, nobody can read it.
Connect an assistant. In step 2, stay on the Claude or ChatGPT tab and click Connect. The app opens a connection from your computer to the SQZ relay and shows a Connected line, a connector address and a one-time code.
Add the connector. Click Copy connector address. In Claude, go to Settings › Connectors › Add custom connector and paste it. In ChatGPT, add an MCP connection with that address and choose OAuth. An approval page opens.
Approve with the code. Enter the one-time code from the app on the approval page. Never enter your vault password there. The assistant now lists the SQZ tools.
Keep the app running. The assistant reaches your vault through your computer, so the app has to stay open (it can sit in the tray). Tick Start SQZ Backup when I sign in to have the connection ready every day.

If you only use Codex on the same computer, choose the Codex tab and click Connect to Codex. Nothing leaves your computer in that mode. Restart Codex afterwards.

Using it#

Ask in plain words:

"Save this conversation to my SQZ vault."
"Save these messages to my vault: …" (you say which).
"Search my SQZ vault for the renovation budget."
"Open the conversation you found and list the decisions we made."

To bring in older conversations, use Import conversations… in the app. It reads a ChatGPT conversations.json export (unzip the export first), Markdown, plain text, or SQZ's normalized JSON format.

Good to know#

Images and PDFs. You can ask the assistant to save an attached PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP or PDF, up to 25 MB. It is stored encrypted in your vault, once per identical file, and found again by name, description or, for a PDF, its text (the first 200 pages). The assistant gets the text and description back, not the picture itself. Claude may need connect.sqzatlas.com allowed in its network settings to upload. Other file types and files you didn't attach are not saved.
Access renews by itself for up to 30 days. After that, or after you disconnect, the assistant asks you to connect again. Click New code in the app, and add the same connector address again if the assistant asks. A code works once and expires after 10 minutes.
Search is by words, not meaning. All the words you type must appear, in any order. There's no fuzzy or semantic matching.
Nothing is deleted. Old versions stay in the vault's snapshots, and the assistant has no delete tool.
Sized for a small collection. Every operation restores the vault to a temporary folder and removes it afterwards, so it suits hundreds of conversations, not tens of thousands. An import is limited to 64 MiB.
The relay sees what passes through it. Text an assistant asks for goes through the SQZ relay in memory. The relay never stores it and never sees your vault password. See Privacy for what it does store.
Where the vault lives. On your computer, encrypted by SQZ, in the folder the app chose. The vault is separate from your backup plans and should not be reused as one.

If something goes wrong#

What you see	What to do
Connect fails with "unavailable" and an HTTP number such as 503 or 504	The relay isn't reachable or isn't taking new computers yet. Check the address under Advanced is exactly what the app suggested, wait a minute and try again. If it keeps happening, write to hello@hanki.tools.
The approval page says the code is invalid or expired	Codes are one-time and last 10 minutes. Click New code in the app and start the connection again from the assistant.
The approval page says the request expired	Start again from the assistant: remove and re-add the connector, or use its reconnect button.
The assistant says your vault computer is offline	Open SQZ Backup on that computer and check Connected shows on the Connect your AI page. If not, click Connect.
You want to stop access	Click Disconnect in the app. It revokes the assistant's access. To have your installation record removed as well, write to hello@hanki.tools.