How to export your messages

The export happens on your phone, inside WhatsApp itself. Open the chat you need, then:

1. iPhone: tap the contact or group name at the top → scroll down → Export Chat → Without Media.
2. Android: tap ⋮ → More → Export chat → Without media.
3. Send the export to yourself (email it, save to Files or Drive), then upload the .txt or .zip here. Either works.

Choose Without media. It keeps the file small, and you can add relevant media separately. WhatsApp’s own instructions: How to export your chat history.

Two routes. A handful of individual messages is easiest as .eml. A whole mailbox or folder is .mbox.

A few individual messages (.eml)

• Gmail, several at once: tick the emails in the list → ⋮ (More, in the toolbar above the list) → Forward as attachment. A new email opens with every ticked message attached as its own .eml file. Send it to yourself, open it, and click the Download all attachments icon: you get one .zip. Unzip it and drag all the .eml files into the uploader together. Gmail allows 25 MB per email, so a batch with heavy attachments may need splitting in two. Include the emails you sent as well as the ones you received. For a single message, open it → ⋮ → Download message.
  Open Gmail
• Outlook.com, Hotmail, Live, Microsoft 365: right click the message in the list → Download. Hotmail and Live accounts are Outlook.com, so this exact route works for them. Microsoft’s instructions.
  Open Outlook.com
• Apple Mail and Thunderbird: drag the message from the list onto your desktop. Each one becomes an .eml file. Classic Outlook on Windows is the exception: dragging produces .msg, which cannot be read here. Instead, select the messages in the list (Ctrl click, or Ctrl+A for the whole folder), then File → Save As and choose Text Only (*.txt). Outlook saves them all into one text file, and we read that.

In new Outlook, use More actions, then Save as, and check the saved format. You can select several .eml files at once when uploading.

A whole mailbox or folder (.mbox)

Gmail

Export the one person, not the whole mailbox. A whole mailbox runs to gigabytes and is mostly newsletters and receipts; the correspondence that matters is usually a few megabytes once it is filtered.

1. In Gmail, search for the person: from:their@address OR to:their@address. Tick the select all box above the results, then click Select all conversations that match this search.
2. Click the label icon in the toolbar → Create new → name it, for example Case export → apply it.
3. Use the button below. It opens Google Takeout with only Mail already selected. Click All Mail data included, untick Include all messages in Mail, and tick only your new label.
4. Scroll down, press Next step, then Create export. Google emails you when it is ready, when the export has been prepared. The .mbox file is inside the Takeout/Mail folder of the download; upload it as it is.

If the upload reports a size limit, contact us before splitting or converting the archive.

Apple Mail (Mac)

1. Select the mailbox in the sidebar → menu bar Mailbox → Export Mailbox… → choose where to save it. Apple’s guide.
2. What you get is a .mbox package, which is really a folder. Right click it → Show Package Contents.
3. Inside is a file named just mbox. Copy it out, rename it to mailbox.mbox, and upload that. (The demo will also accept the package zipped, but the rename route works everywhere.)

Outlook, Hotmail, Microsoft 365, Yahoo, AOL, iCloud and most others

None of these export .mbox directly, and Outlook’s own export produces a .pst file we cannot read. The free, reliable route is Thunderbird:

1. Install Mozilla Thunderbird (free, Windows/Mac/Linux) and sign in to your email account. It syncs your folders automatically.
2. Install the ImportExportTools NG add on (Tools → Add ons and Themes → search “ImportExportTools NG”).
3. Right click the folder you need → ImportExportTools NG → Export folder → mbox. Upload the file it saves.

Proton Mail

The official Proton Mail Export Tool produces .eml files we can read directly. For .mbox, use Proton Mail Bridge with Thunderbird (paid Proton plans).

Two routes. If you use Messages on a Mac, the first one needs no extra software at all.

Alternative: from Messages on a Mac

Messages on macOS stores conversation records in chat.db. You upload that file, and we ask you which conversation the case is about.

1. In Finder, press Shift Command G and paste ~/Library/Messages, then press Return.
2. Copy chat.db to your Desktop. (Copy it rather than dragging it, so the original is left alone. If macOS refuses, grant Finder or your terminal Full Disk Access in System Settings, Privacy and Security.)
3. Upload that copy to your case. Because the file contains multiple conversations, including unrelated personal messages, we then show you a list of the conversations in it, with the participants, message counts and date ranges.
4. Choose the one this case is about. Only that conversation enters the timeline. The whole uploaded database is retained as an original file. Use a single conversation CSV if you do not want to share other conversations.

Check the upload size limit before choosing a database file. Messages that store their text in a modern attributed body record are decoded, where supported; check import warnings for anything that could not be read. Tapbacks, reactions and attachments are reported as skipped rather than guessed at.

From an iPhone, with iMazing

If you do not have a Mac, or your messages are only on the phone, iMazing exports a single conversation directly.

1. Install iMazing on a Mac or PC and connect your iPhone.
2. Open Messages, select the conversation you need, and export it as CSV.
3. Upload the .csv. Because you picked the conversation in iMazing, there is nothing further to choose here.

The in browser demo does not read Messages databases. Use a case in the full service for chat.db, or try the demo with an iMazing CSV.

Keep the conversation, its dates and its context together. Download a Message report from your OurFamilyWizard account, then upload that original PDF to your case.

1. Sign in to OurFamilyWizard in your browser and open Messages.
2. Choose All Messages, then the Report icon. Some versions call this Download.
3. Select All In Folder or Within Date Range. Check that the folder and dates include the conversation you need.
4. Keep the report header, check the report time zone and choose Download to save the PDF. With All Messages selected, including replies can repeat messages already in the report. Private professional messages are excluded by default; include them only when you intend to share them.
5. Save the original PDF. If a longer report is prepared in the background, open Notifications, then Report Generated. On iPhone, use the browser share menu and Save to Files.
6. In LegallyHeard, open your case, then Evidence and Add evidence. Choose the PDF and change its file option to OurFamilyWizard message report. If the dates could mean either day first or month first, select the order actually printed in the report.

Current import support. Message import currently supports a limited older report layout. Newer or different reports can be kept as document exhibits for review.

What is kept. The original PDF is stored unchanged with its file fingerprint. Supported text reports become source labelled messages in your combined transcript. Subjects, recipients, first view information and report page references are retained with the import metadata. A first view receipt is the record supplied by OurFamilyWizard, not proof of understanding or agreement.

Attachments and other reports. Download any attachment folder separately and upload the relevant original files to the evidence vault. Calendar, expense, journal and call reports can be stored as supporting evidence. They are not treated as message conversations.

If a report cannot be read. Scans, password protected files, missing time zone information, ambiguous dates and unsupported layouts need review. We explain the issue rather than silently guessing. Keep the original and choose Keep as a document exhibit to store it in your vault. The importer has been checked with synthetic reports based on published examples; report layouts can vary.

The report time zone describes its printed clock, not either parent’s location. OurFamilyWizard professional access depends on account permissions. LegallyHeard is not affiliated with OurFamilyWizard and does not promise that a report will be admitted by a court.

Official instructions: Download a Message report.

1. Use a button below to open Meta’s Download your information page (it lives in Accounts Centre, several menus deep).
2. Choose Download or transfer information → select your profile → Some of your information → tick Messages.
3. Set the format to JSON (not HTML). Keep any relevant original media separately.
4. When the download arrives, it contains one folder per conversation. Upload one conversation at a time, either its .json file or a .zip of that single conversation folder.

Some Messenger history uses encrypted chat storage and may need a separate export. See Meta’s encrypted chat download help. Check the exported contents before relying on it as a complete record.

1. Install SMS Backup & Restore (free) from the Play Store.
2. Open it → Set up a backup → back up Messages. Save locally or to Drive.
3. Upload the .xml file it produces, unchanged. The direction of each message (sent or received) is stored inside it, so upload the original rather than a converted copy.

1. Install Telegram Desktop from Telegram’s own website. The phone app cannot export.
2. Open the chat → ⋮ → Export chat history, or for everything: Settings → Advanced → Export Telegram data.
3. Both export formats work: the default HTML (upload messages.html, or zip the whole export folder and upload that) or machine readable JSON (upload the .json). Export a single chat where you can.
4. For a long HTML export split across messages.html, messages2.html and so on, select them all together or zip the folder. Keep relevant original photos and attachments so you can add them as supporting evidence.

1. Sign in at Snapchat’s My Data page (button below).
2. Request your data with Chat History included, in JSON format.
3. Snapchat emails a download link. Inside the archive, upload json/chat_history.json.

Saved text chats come through with sender and time. Snaps, disappearing messages and media are listed as media records without their content, which is a limit of Snapchat’s export, not of the upload.

1. Open LinkedIn’s Get a copy of your data page (button below).
2. Choose Want something in particular? → tick Messages → Request archive.
3. LinkedIn emails a download link, when the archive is ready. Inside the archive, upload messages.csv.

Slack has no export for individual members. Exports are run for the whole workspace by a Workspace Owner or Admin (on Enterprise plans, an Org Owner or a member with the Export Admin role). If that is not you, the request goes to the employer; see the subject access note under Microsoft Teams, which applies to Slack in the same way.

1. Owner or Admin: click the workspace name → Tools & settings (older menus say Settings & administration) → Workspace settings → Import & export data → the Export tab.
2. Choose the date range, the whole history where the plan allows it, and click Start export. Slack emails a download link when the file is ready.
3. Upload the .zip exactly as Slack delivered it, without unpacking or renaming anything. The whole workspace imports as one batch and every message keeps the channel it was posted in. A single day file, or a set of day files selected together with users.json, also works.

What comes through: every message with its sender resolved from users.json, its channel (#general, a direct message shown as the two names, or a group direct message) and its thread, so a reply stays attached to the message it answered. Joins, leaves, topic changes and deleted message placeholders are kept as labelled system records rather than dropped. App and bot posts appear under the bot’s own name. Emoji reactions are not carried into the record. Slack stores times in UTC. Keep the export unchanged and check any time zone warnings during import.

Which route applies depends on the account. A work or school account, signed in with an employer’s Microsoft 365 login, has no self service export at all: the record is held by the organisation and only its administrators can export it. A personal account (Teams Free, including history migrated from Skype) can export itself.

Work and school accounts

There is no button in Teams that exports a chat, and the personal export page refuses work accounts. Ask the organisation’s IT or compliance team for one of these, in this order of preference:

1. Graph export JSON. Ask an administrator about the Teams Export APIs, which provide messages in Microsoft’s chatMessage shape. Upload the JSON files; several pages of results can be uploaded together. ZIP files already produced by the Teams data export tool are also supported. That Microsoft tool is for eligible organisation migrations away from Teams, requires support activation and is not a general chat export button.
2. Purview eDiscovery export. The organisation’s eDiscovery Manager searches the participants’ mailboxes and exports either HTML conversation transcripts (the Organize conversation into HTML transcript option) or a PST, in both cases with the Items report. These arrive in containers we convert for you in the white glove service rather than read automatically; contact us when you have one.
3. A PowerShell CSV. Some administrators export a chat with the Graph PowerShell module. That works if the header keeps CreatedDateTime, a sender column and the message content.

Personal accounts (Teams Free)

1. Sign in at teams.live.com/dataexport (button below) with the personal Microsoft account. Work and school accounts are refused here.
2. Tick Chat history, and Media if you want the files, then Submit request. The archive appears under Available exports, when it has been prepared; check Available Exports for progress.
3. Download the .tar, extract it, and upload messages.json. Only conversations you are still a member of are included, and each party’s personal account produces its own export.

What comes through: each chat labelled by its topic or participants, each channel post labelled with its team and channel, replies attached to the post they answer, and edited or deleted messages marked as system records. Bodies that Teams stores as HTML are reduced to their text. Keep the original timestamps and check any time zone warnings during import.

Use Google Takeout where your account and the conversation allow it. Exports can exclude group messages or spaces created by work or school users. Work and school users may need their administrator to supply the records. Check the contents of the download.

1. Use the button below. It opens Google Takeout with only Google Chat already selected. (If you arrive at Takeout another way: Deselect all, then tick Google Chat.)
2. Scroll down, press Next step, then Create export. Google emails a link when the archive is ready: hours is typical, days for large accounts. Download the .zip.
3. Upload the whole archive, or just the conversation you need. Inside Takeout/Google Chat/Groups/ each direct message or space is a folder holding messages.json and group_info.json. Select both files together, because the folder name is only an ID and the participants’ names live in group_info.json.

What comes through: every message with its sender, labelled Space or DM with the members’ names, and replies kept with the topic they belong to. Takeout includes timestamp information. Keep the export unchanged and check any time zone warnings during import.

Google Chat export coverage and limitations.

Two routes, and the difference matters for evidence.

Your data package (your own messages only)

1. User Settings → Data & Privacy → Request all of my data (on mobile, Settings → Data & Privacy). Discord emails a download link within 30 days, and the link lasts 30 days.
2. Upload the package .zip, or the contents of its messages folder: one folder per channel holding channel.json and messages.json (older packages use messages.csv), plus index.json.

The package contains only the messages you sent, never anyone else’s, and messages you deleted are absent. It evidences what you said and when, in which server and channel, and the batch is labelled to say exactly that. On its own it cannot evidence an exchange.

A whole channel with DiscordChatExporter

DiscordChatExporter is a free, open source tool that saves a channel or direct message with every participant’s messages. Export in JSON and upload the file; senders, edit times and the channel are all kept.

Members cannot export Viva Engage. A Global administrator, Engage administrator or Verified administrator exports the network’s data, and for one person’s messages there is a separate single user export designed for subject access requests.

1. Administrator: Viva Engage admin centre → Governance and compliance → Data export → choose the date range, and whether to include attachments → Export. The result is a .zip of CSV files.
2. Upload Messages.csv from the archive.
3. Not an administrator? Ask the organisation for the export, or for the single user export under a subject access request.

What comes through: every message with its sender’s name, its community (or Private conversation for private messages) and its thread, so replies stay with the post they answer. Keep the original timestamps and check any time zone warnings during import.

Skype has retired. Use an archive you already downloaded or history that remains available in Teams.

1. An archive you already downloaded. The Skype export was a .tar file. Extract it and upload messages.json. Media, if you requested it, sits in a media folder and can be added as evidence exhibits.
2. History migrated to Teams. If your Skype history was migrated to Teams Free, check what is still available there. Export them with the Teams personal account route; the file is the same messages.json shape. History that was not retained may no longer be available.

What comes through: each conversation labelled with its name, calls and file shares kept as system records, and an edited message once rather than twice. Skype’s cloud history only reaches back to April 2017; anything older survives only in the local database of an old Skype 7 installation, which we can look at in the white glove service.

In the full service, screenshots, photos and ordinary PDFs are stored as evidence exhibits. Originals receive a file fingerprint when uploaded. That fingerprint records the file supplied; it does not prove authenticity or completeness.

These files do not automatically become messages in the combined timeline. Where possible, add the original message export as well, so dates, senders and the surrounding conversation can be reviewed. Keep uncropped originals alongside any excerpts.

Relevant screenshots can still show things missing from an export, such as a profile page or story. Check the original files and any generated report before relying on them.

Supported OurFamilyWizard Message reports have a separate, limited importer. The demo reads message exports only.

On the website, add an original recording under Evidence. Supported video formats are .mp4 and .mov. Supported audio formats are .m4a, .mp3, .wav, .opus and .ogg. Video sound is extracted for transcription.

AI processing. Website uploads attempt draft transcription and can send the audio to an external AI provider. Read our data processing information first. Processing can be pending or fail. Native app uploads currently store the recording without starting transcription.

The original recording is retained with its file fingerprint. Where a draft is available, it is stored alongside the recording. Check names, speakers and wording against the original, especially when voices overlap or sound is unclear.

A draft is not a certified transcript. For disputed wording or a hearing, ask your legal adviser whether a checked or certified human transcript is needed.

A .csv or .tsv works if it has a date column, a sender column and a message column. Headers such as timestamp, date, sender, from, message and text are recognised automatically. ISO timestamps with a timezone offset are preferred, because they remove any ambiguity about what the time means.

Not read automatically yet. Each of these is handled in the white glove service; contact us with what you have and we will tell you what it contains before any work starts.

• X (Twitter): Settings → Download an archive of your data. The archive stores direct messages with numeric account IDs rather than names, so it is not yet read automatically.
• TikTok: Settings → Download your data includes direct messages. Choose the TXT format.
• Zoom Team Chat: only an account administrator can export it, from the Chat history report, as CSV or HTML. In meeting chat that a participant saved during the meeting is a plain .txt.
• Webex: a Control Hub compliance officer runs an eDiscovery report, delivered as a .zip of one .eml per message. Those archives are handled white glove.
• Mattermost, Rocket.Chat and Zulip: administrator exports (Mattermost JSONL, Rocket.Chat HTML or JSON, Zulip archives). Rocket.Chat also lets a member export a room when the administrator has enabled it.
• Symphony, Bloomberg and ICE Chat: held firm side by the compliance archive (Symphony XML or EML, Bloomberg daily XML files, ICE Chat XML). They reach you only through the firm or through disclosure, and we read them from what the firm supplies.
• Workplace from Meta: closed in May 2026, with its data deleted from 1 June 2026. An export downloaded before the closure can still be used.
• Microsoft Purview exports as PST (Teams, Exchange or Viva Engage) are handled white glove, as are Outlook .pst files generally.

• Outlook’s own formats: .pst, .ost, .msg and .olm. These are what File → Open & Export produces. Use one of the email routes above instead, or contact us about a .pst, which is converted in the white glove service.
• Signal: its native backups are encrypted and are not accepted. A clearly identified third party CSV or JSON export can be used if you keep a record of where it came from.

Evidence files in the demo are processed in your browser. Contact verification uses our server. Files added to a real case are uploaded to our server and stored in your private account.

Read our privacy policy and security information, including processing by optional AI services, before uploading.