Translating a chat.db-wal File

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Level 1

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Translating a chat.db-wal File

Hi there,

I need to recover some deleted iMessages but they're 1) Over 30 days old, 2) Not on any of my backups and 3) Not on any of my other devices. I do, however, have a "chat.db-wal" file that' dates back to the necessary time frame. But, when I open it, it's just a bunch of illegible symbols, numbers and letters. I spent hours troubleshooting with some fantastic Apple Advisors on the phone, but we all remained stumped.

I downloaded "SQLite Flow" from the App Store, but when I go to open the chat.db-wal with that software, nothing generates. Does anyone know how to translate this kind of a document into something legible? Perhaps reverse engineer the data in it?

Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions.

MacBook

Posted on Aug 18, 2020 4:15 PM

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Answer 1

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,036 points

Aug 18, 2020 5:17 PM in response to PLA1029

The -wal is the write ahead log. It may have information in it, but not in a structure that may be identifiable.

https://sqlite.org/wal.html

This may help recover something, but you would still need to know SQL to read the information stored in the recovered database.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18259692/how-to-recover-a-corrupt-sqlite3-database

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Answer 2

VikingOSX

Level 10

123,144 points

Aug 18, 2020 4:19 PM in response to PLA1029

Open chat.db, which likely knows about chat.db-wal. Yes, it is a sqlite3 database with likely a bunch of tables in it, but uncertain if you can actually recover valid iMessages in a usable file format from that database. You may have to do one or more SQL joins to get at what you want, even if it is possible.

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Translating a chat.db-wal File

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