Over the past decade, with the increasing accessibility to smartphone and the internet, traditional text messages or SMS were replaced by instant messaging services Whatsapp. And unlike SMS, these internet-supported multimedia messaging services also let users keep a backup of their chats and memories on cloud or your PC.
While Whatsapp backup your chats online, you can also export the chat history to your PC or elsewhere. Once exported, you can access your Whatsapp chats as regular text files, and if you choose to export the media shared in the chat, they’ll be stored separately.
How to export Whatsapp chat history from iPhone to PC?
Follow the steps mentioned below to export your Whatsapp chat from your iPhone to a PC.
- Open the chat you want to export and then click on the contact name at the top of the chatbox.
- Scroll down and tap on Export Chat option.
- Two options will appear at the bottom of the screen — Attach Media and Without Media. The latter of the two options comes with limitations as shared media over a period can accumulate to make quite a huge file. If you don’t want to export the files shared with the contact alongwith your chat with them, then select the Without Media option.
- Now from the various available options like Save to File, social platforms, among others, if you want to send the chat backup to your PC, Google Drive, Dropbox, Airdrop and Mail are some of the best options.
The best option, however, is to send it to Google Drive so that it can be easily opened in PC. Dropbox is also one of the options but a little bit complex than Drive. If you want you can also send the chat backup via Mail and download the file onto your PC. You can also use other cloud services that you might have both on your iPhone as well as PC.
Check out the guides at the end of the article to get clarity on using Google Drive and Dropbox.
Also read:Â How to create a Whatsapp group link in iPhone?
How to export Whatsapp chat from Android to PC?
To export your Whatsapp chat to a PC from Android, follow the steps mentioned below.
- Open the chat you want to export and then tap on the vertical triple dot menu at the top-right of the chatbox.
- From the dropdown list, select More.
- Then tap on the Export chat option.
- As mentioned in the guide for iPhone above, two options will appear in a pop-up on the screen — Include Media and Without Media. The latter of the two options comes with limitations as shared media over a period can accumulate to make quite a huge file. If you don’t want to export the files shared with the contact alongwith your chat with them, then select the Without Media option.
- Now from the various available sharing options, choose the one that suits your needs the best. If you’re exporting the file to a PC, do it via Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, or any of your preferred services, including email.
After you are done uploading the file, your chat will appear as a .txt file which you can open on your browser version of Google Drive (if exported via Google Drive) or via any basic text editor app such as Notepad on Windows or TextEdit on macOS.
Resources that might further help you export your Whatsapp chat history to PC