Export WhatsApp Chats and Attachments from iPhone to your computer in PDF, Excel, CSV, and RSMF formats

Like Messages, WhatsApp chats can contain anything from special personal memories to crucial evidence which could help win a court case. The problem is that WhatsApp doesn't allow for messages and attachments to be easily exported, be it on iPhone or the desktop app. This makes extracting your WhatsApp data a tedious task at best.

iMazing offers any easy solution for viewing, saving and printing WhatsApp and WhatsApp Business messages on both Mac and Windows PC. You will be able to:

Here's how to export your WhatsApp messages to Mac or PC:

Select WhatsApp

Once you device selected, at the top of the device's Overview screen, click WhatsApp.

Choose how to load your data

iMazing needs to create a backup to extract data from your device. You can choose whether you only need access to your WhatsApp messages and conversations, or whether you want to create a full, restorable backup of the device. A partial backup uses much less storage, but both options take about the same amount of time because all files are streamed from your device to your computer during the process. iMazing cannot control which files are streamed.

Click Start to launch the operation. iMazing prompts you to enter the passcode on the device.

If a backup of the device already exists, iMazing shows the following prompt instead. Choose whether to open the existing backup or run a subsequent backup to refresh the contents.

Browse your WhatsApp messages

Once iMazing finishes loading the data, it displays your conversations in the main window.

Browse an existing backup

You can browse your WhatsApp messages without connecting your iPhone, as long as iMazing already holds a backup of the device. iMazing can also open backups made with iTunes, Finder, or Apple Devices once you add them to iMazing.

1. On the Home Screen, open the Backups section to see every backup iMazing manages.
2. Select the backup you want to open. iMazing opens it so you can browse its content, no device connection is required.
3. On the backup Overview, click WhatsApp in the datasets row.

Browse from a previous snapshot

Each time iMazing backs up your device, it keeps a timestamped snapshot, so you can open your WhatsApp messages as they existed at an earlier date. This works like macOS Time Machine, applied to your iOS or iPadOS backups.

By default, iMazing shows the current state of your device or the latest backup. To reach an earlier state:

Select your device or a backup from the Home Screen.

In the upper toolbar, click the Now button to open the Snapshot List.

Select an earlier snapshot. iMazing reloads the WhatsApp view with the messages contained in that snapshot.

A gray checkmark marks the state you are currently viewing. Select Now again to return to the current state.

Configure how messages are displayed

Before selecting what to export, use the gear menu to control how messages appear in the view and in the exported file. Click the gear icon to open the display options:

• Show contact details: adds each participant's saved contact information to the conversation.
• Show time for all messages (checked by default): displays a timestamp on every message rather than only at intervals.
• Show original messages of replies (checked by default): displays the quoted message that each reply responds to.
• Show reactions (checked by default): displays emoji reactions applied to messages.
• Show notifications (checked by default): displays system events such as a participant joining or leaving a group, or a name change.
• Show recently deleted messages: displays messages that were deleted from the conversation but remain recoverable from the backup.
• Only show attachments: filters the conversation to show attachments alone.
• Hide attachments: removes attachments from the conversation, keeping text only.

Choose messages or conversations to be exported

When you select a conversation in the left column, you'll see it's corresponding messages and attachments displayed.

If you only want to save certain messages, select them now. If you need to export multiple conversations in bulk, you can select them now too.

Click Export button to choose a file format

Click the Export button at the bottom right of the iMazing window and select the desired file format.

Review export options

iMazing will now give you the option to customize your output. Default settings are usually adequate. You can refer to Export Options below for more details. Here's what the PDF export options window looks like:

Choose a location and save the file on your computer

iMazing then displays a dialog asking you where you want to save the exported messages:

Select a location, change the file name if needed, then click Choose on macOS or Save on Windows. iMazing generates and saves the file, and you can then read these messages in the format you've chosen, or import them into other apps.

Saving Attachments

You can easily drag and drop any attachment from iMazing to your desktop. But you can also just as easily export all attachments of selected chats, here's how:

1. Select the chats you wish to export attachments from You can select as many chats as you want from the Chats list in iMazing. Hold the command or control key to add a chat to your current selection.
2. Click Export Attachments in the bottom toolbar
3. Navigate to your target folder, and confirm by clicking Choose

Exported attachments include photos, videos, audio messages, contacts (as vCards), locations (as links to Google Maps), shared links, and all kinds of attached files and documents.

Export Options

iMazing offers 4 different formats in which to export WhatsApp data:

1. Export to PDF is a good choice to digitally archive and share chats
2. Export to CSV is great to recover actionable data which you can easily import in a spreadsheet (Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers…)
3. Export to Text is less commonly used, but very useful to get a human readable pure text output
4. Export to RSMF is used for e-discovery, archiving, forensics, and data analysis (requires a Business subscription, read more about RSMF)

Each of these export formats can be customized. Simply click the corresponding button and iMazing will display format-specific export options for you to review.

PDF Export and Print Options

The PDF Export Options window offers the following settings:

• Paper size and orientation
• Scale can be used to adjust the size of the font and of images. The range extends from 30% to 300%.
• Margins
• Add chat session name in header
• Add page numbers in footer
• Add export metadata in footer is useful to give increased legal weight to exported messages. The footer of every page will include the iPhone's name and serial number, the date of the export, and the last modified date of the WhatsApp database from which the data was exported.
• Export all messages in chat or Export only selected messages
• Sign PDF: Add a digital certificate to verify the signer's identity and protect the file's integrity. You can select an existing certificate or create a new one.
  

  

  
  

  Info: PDF Signing requires a Business Subscription

Print options are identical to the options available in the Export to PDF window, with the added possibility to choose a printer.

CSV Export Options

iMazing's powerful CSV exports let you easily import messaging data in an Excel or Google Sheets spreadsheet for further analysis. After exporting to CSV, simply launch the spreadsheet program of your choice and look for Import from CSV options.

There are 2 optional settings in iMazing's message to CSV exports:

• Include header row is enabled by default. Disable to export the data without including column names. This is useful for appending data to an existing spreadsheet.
• Include chat session name is also enabled by default. Having the chat session name is needed to identify a specific chat if you aggregate multiple chats together in a spreadsheet.

Text Export Options

Exports in text format can be customized in detail to output just the content you need.

By default, the following types of information are included:

• The chat session name
• The sender name of each message
• The date and time of each message
• The status of the message - wether it is sent, delivered or read
• Attachment information like web addresses or GPS coordinates
• Notifications - if a participant's name has been changed or if they have joined or left a conversation
• Adding a separator between messages to improve readability

WhatsApp Business

iMazing fully supports both WhatsApp and WhatsApp Business, and the exact same features are available for both apps. iMazing will recognize whether you have WhatsApp or WhatsApp Business installed, and show the appropriate icon. If you have both installed, iMazing will display both – simply click on the one you'd like to browse and export messages from.

Going further

Searching and Filtering

iMazing's WhatsApp view offers date range filters and text search fields designed to help you find and recover content quickly.

• The date range picker lets you focus on a specific time period. Only messages and chats from the selected timeframe will be displayed and exported.
• The content search field at the top of iMazing's window which you can use to search for a specific word in your entire WhatsApp chat history.
• The chat session search bar under the list of chats in which you can type a participant's name to easily find all conversations in which that person participated, even chats from which the person left.

These filters can be combined too. And if you need to place a specific message you found in it's original context, simply select it and clear the search filter; iMazing will preserve your selection and put it back in its original context. Handy!