How to export your data from WhatsApp

Requesting the GDPR export, what arrives, and how to open it.

medium Wait: about three days for the account report; chat exports are instant

WhatsApp is required to give you a copy of the data it holds about you, including messages. The request itself is free, and arrives as either a .zip report, or per-chat .txt with media. Typical wait: about three days for the account report; chat exports are instant.

WhatsApp data request

Step by step

  1. Decide which of the two you want

    They are completely different. The account report is metadata about you. Exporting a chat gives you the actual messages.

  2. For the account report: Settings, Account, Request account info

    Available on the phone or on WhatsApp Web, but not on the Windows or Mac apps. It takes about three days.

  3. For your messages: open a chat

    Tap the contact name, scroll down, then Export chat. Choose with or without media.

  4. Send it somewhere you can keep it

    The export is handed to the share sheet rather than saved, so pick your email, a file app or cloud storage.

  5. Repeat for each conversation

    There is no way to export every chat at once. This is the part people find out too late.

Opening your WhatsApp export

Muletto reads a WhatsApp export directly - the zip, without unpacking it first - and finds the messages inside.

It runs in the browser: the archive is never uploaded, there is no account, and nothing is installed. Open several exports at once and they become one library, with the photographs that appear in more than one of them found automatically.

The account report contains no messages at all. It is your phone number, profile, group memberships, settings and counts.

Open your WhatsApp export

Worth knowing

The account report contains no messages at all. It is your phone number, profile, group memberships, settings and counts.
A chat export is one text file plus the media as separate files. iOS and Android name and format them differently.
A chat with Advanced Chat Privacy switched on cannot be exported at all.

Common questions

Does a WhatsApp data request include my messages?

No. The account information report holds metadata: your number, profile, group memberships, settings and message counts, but not a single message. To get messages you export each conversation individually from within the app.

How do I export all my WhatsApp chats at once?

You cannot. Export chat works one conversation at a time and there is no bulk option.

Why can I not export a particular WhatsApp chat?

If Advanced Chat Privacy is switched on for that conversation, exporting is blocked entirely.