Jump between messages in a long ChatGPT conversation
Speed Booster Toolkit adds a chat navigator: a slim rail beside the conversation that lists every message, with who wrote it and when, so you can click straight to one instead of scrolling for it. A filter field narrows the list as you type, and the Filters tab can reduce a thread to only the messages containing code blocks or images.
ChatGPT has its own prompt navigator, but it only appears once a conversation has fully loaded — so in a long chat, where it would help most, it often is not there. This one works whether the conversation is fully loaded or not, and shows messages you have just sent straight away. It is on by default, free, and has no daily limit.
The background
Why a long chat is hard to move around in
A ChatGPT conversation is one continuous column. That is fine for twenty messages. At several hundred it becomes the only interface you have to a document the length of a short book — with no contents page, no headings, and no way to see where you are.
ChatGPT does have a prompt navigator for this, and it is genuinely useful. The catch is when it appears: it needs the conversation to be loaded, and long conversations are exactly the ones ChatGPT loads a page at a time. So the rail tends to be missing in the threads that most need it, and present in the short ones that do not.
The navigator here takes that same space and fills it from what the extension already knows about the conversation. It does not wait for the whole chat to load. It updates the moment you send a message. And because each row carries an author, a time and the first words of the message, the rail reads as a summary of the conversation rather than a column of identical marks.
If you prefer ChatGPT’s own, the switch in the extension settings puts it back immediately.
What is in the rail
Six things it gives you
Every message, with who and when
Each row names the author — you or ChatGPT — shows the time it was sent, and carries the opening words of the message. That is usually enough to recognise a message without reading it, which is what makes a long thread skimmable.
Click to jump
Selecting a row scrolls the conversation to that message and marks it briefly, so you can see where you landed instead of having to work it out from the surrounding text.
A filter field
Type in the filter box and the list narrows to matching rows as you go. It is the quickest way to get from "somewhere in this conversation" to the exact message.
Show only code blocks
The Filters tab can reduce the list to messages that contain code. In a long debugging session that turns hundreds of messages into the few that actually hold a snippet.
Show only images
The same filter can show only messages containing images, which makes finding something generated earlier in a long session quick.
A switch, not a takeover
The navigator is on by default and is a single switch in the settings. Turn it off and ChatGPT’s own rail comes back within a second, with no page reload.
At a glance
The specifics, in one place.
| Where it sits | A rail at the right-hand edge of the conversation |
|---|---|
| What a row shows | Author (you or ChatGPT), the time, and the opening words of the message |
| Filter field | Yes — narrows the list as you type |
| Filters tab | Show only messages containing code blocks, or only messages containing images |
| Jump to a message | Click a row; the chat scrolls there and marks the message briefly |
| Newly sent messages | Appear immediately, with no page reload |
| Partly loaded chats | Works, and says when there is more of the conversation still to load |
| ChatGPT’s own navigator | Hidden while this one is on; restored within a second when switched off |
| Daily limit | None. Free on every tier. |
How to use the chat navigator
It is on as soon as the extension is installed — there is nothing to set up.
Install the extension
Add Speed Booster Toolkit to Chrome or Firefox and open a ChatGPT conversation.
Open the rail
The chat navigator sits at the right-hand edge of the conversation and is on by default.
Skim or filter
Scan the rows, type in the filter field to narrow them, or use the Filters tab to show only messages containing code blocks or images.
Click to jump
Selecting a row scrolls the conversation to that message and marks it briefly so you can see where you landed.