heatherwillow

Q: Exporting iMessage Conversations from El Capitan

Hey!  I'm looking to save my iMessage and Text Message histories in a human-readable form, without spending money on a third-party app.

Has anyone found something that works?  All the OS tricks seem to be outdated for El Capitan.

...if not, know of a cheap app that works?

iTunes, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Aug 10, 2016 11:35 PM

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Q: Exporting iMessage Conversations from El Capitan

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  • by Ralph Johns (UK),

    Ralph Johns (UK) Ralph Johns (UK) Aug 11, 2016 12:58 PM in response to heatherwillow
    Level 9 (72,994 points)
    Applications
    Aug 11, 2016 12:58 PM in response to heatherwillow

    Hi,

     

    http://spiny.com/logorrhea/

    It is old (built for iChat) but it works.

    Having said that it does take a while to understand what it does and get to isolate individual conversations.

     

    You do have to be Saving chats in the first place.

    It works in the files in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iChat/Data/Library/Messages/Archive (in here they are in dated/session folders)

     

    iMessages are also "saved" in the chat.db items (all three) in ~/Library/Messages but Logorrhea does not read those files.

     

     

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    8:58 pm      Thursday; August 11, 2016

     

      iMac 2.5Ghz i5 2011 (El Capitan)
     G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
     MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
     Mac OS X (10.6.8),
     iPhone and an iPad (2)