Exporting a WhatsApp chat with media on iPhone
On iOS there is no three-dot menu — tap the contact or group name at the top of the chat, scroll all the way down, and Export Chat is near the bottom with Clear Chat and Delete Chat. Choose Attach Media, then Save to Files from the share sheet.
The path, tap by tap
- Open the chat, then tap the name at the topThe contact’s name or the group’s name, in the header. This opens the chat’s info screen. There is no ⋮ menu on iOS — people coming from Android look for one and conclude the feature is missing.
- Scroll to the very bottomPast media, past links, past the mute and disappearing-message controls. It is a long scroll on a group.
- Export ChatNot there? Advanced Chat Privacy is on for this conversation — see why Export chat goes missing. It is a per-chat setting and either person can have enabled it.
- Attach MediaiOS warns you the file will be large. Say yes. Without Media produces a transcript in which every photograph is the phrase
image omitted. - Wait for the spinner, screen onPreparing a big archive takes minutes and iOS will not warn you if you interrupt it. Do not swipe WhatsApp away while it works.
- Save to Files → On My iPhoneThe share sheet appears, and this is where most exports get lost. Save to Files or Save to Drive. Do not AirDrop a multi-gigabyte zip to a laptop that is about to sleep, and do not mail it — attachment limits will bounce it.
What iOS puts in the zip
| Item | How it appears | Matters because |
|---|---|---|
| The transcript | _chat.txt | Always this exact name on iOS, whoever the chat is with — Android names it after the conversation instead |
| Timestamps | [2026/03/14, 21:07:33] | Square brackets and seconds — iOS is the more precise of the two formats |
| Photos and stickers | 00001-PHOTO.jpg, 00002-STICKER.webp | Numbered in conversation order, so the sequence survives even if a file is missing |
| Voice notes | 00003-AUDIO.opus | The duration is in the transcript line, which is what lets a printed page show the waveform and the real length |
| Invisible marks | U+200E before system lines | Harmless, and the reason some tools show a stray box — explained in opening _chat.txt |
Two iPhone-specific traps
The export is smaller than you expected
iOS offloads old media to iCloud and keeps a thumbnail locally. Anything already offloaded cannot be zipped, so the line survives and the picture does not. Scroll back through the chat to force the photos to re-download before you export. Full explanation here.
AirDrop looks like it worked and didn't
Large transfers fail quietly when the receiving Mac sleeps. Check the file size on the other end before you delete anything. Save to Files first, then move it — one step more, and it cannot half-happen.
Once you have the zip you never need to unzip it. Kept in Print reads the archive whole — drop it into the studio, watch the pages count themselves, and read every one of them before deciding whether you want it printed.
Questions people actually ask
Where is Export Chat on iPhone?
Open the chat, tap the contact or group name in the header to open the info screen, and scroll to the bottom. It sits just above Clear Chat and Delete Chat. There is no three-dot menu on iOS.
Should I choose Attach Media or Without Media?
Attach Media, unless you specifically need to reach further back than 10,000 messages — that is the cap when media is included, against 40,000 without. Without Media replaces every photo with the words 'image omitted'.
My export is much smaller than my chat. Why?
Most often iCloud has offloaded the older media and only thumbnails remain on the device, so those files cannot be included. Scroll back through the conversation to pull them down again before exporting.
Can I export a WhatsApp chat from a Mac?
No. Exporting is available only in the phone app. The Mac and web clients do not offer it.
Does the export include disappearing or view-once messages?
No. Those are never written to the transcript, and neither are deleted messages or reactions.
The zip is the hard part. This is the nice part.
Open the studio — freeThis is one of the guides — or see everything we’ve written.