Export chats from the Signal Desktop app to Markdown and HTML files with attachments. Each chat is exported as an individual .md/.html file and the attachments for each are stored in a separate folder. Attachments are linked from the Markdown files and displayed in the HTML (pictures, videos, voice notes).
Currently this seems to be the only way to get chat history out of Signal!
Adapted from mattsta/signal-backup, which I suspect will be hard to get working now.
An export for a group conversation looks as follows:
[2019-05-29, 15:04] Me: How is everyone?
[2019-05-29, 15:10] Aya: We're great!
[2019-05-29, 15:20] Jim: I'm not.Images are attached inline with  while other attachments (voice notes, videos, documents) are included as links like [name](path) so a click will take you to the file.
This is converted to HTML at the end so it can be opened with any web browser. The stylesheet .css is still very basic but I'll get to it sooner or later.
This tool has some pretty difficult dependencies, so it's easier to get some help from Docker. For most people this will probably be the easiest way. It requires installing Docker and then pulling a 200MB image, so avoid this if data use is a concern.
First off, install Docker. And make sure you have Python installed.
Then install this package:
pip install signal-exportThen run the script! It will do some Docker stuff under the hood to get your data out of the encrypted database.
sigexport ~/signal-chats
# output will be saved to the supplied directorySee Alternative installation methods below for other ways to get it working.
Please fully exit your Signal app before proceeding, otherwise you will likely encounter an I/O disk error, due to the message database being made read-only, as it was being accessed by the app.
See the full help info:
sigexport --helpDisable pagination on HTML, and overwrite anything at the destination:
sigexport --paginate=0 --overwrite ~/signal-chatsList available chats and exit:
sigexport --list-chatsExport only the selected chats:
sigexport --chats=Jim,Aya ~/signal-chatsYou can add --source /path/to/source/dir/ if the script doesn't manage to find the Signal config location.
Default locations per OS are below.
The directory should contain a folder called sql with db.sqlite inside it.
- Linux:
~/.config/Signal/ - macOS:
~/Library/Application Support/Signal/ - Windows:
~/AppData/Roaming/Signal/
You can also use --old /previously/exported/dir/ to merge the new export with a previous one.
Nothing will be overwritten!
It will put the combined results in whatever output directory you specified and leave your previos export untouched.
Exercise is left to the reader to verify that all went well before deleting the previous one.
🌋 This is hard mode, and involves installing more stuff. Probably easy on macOS, slightly involved on Linux, and impossible on Windows.
Before you can install signal-export, you need to get sqlcipher working.
Follow the instructions for your OS:
Install the required libraries.
sudo apt install libsqlite3-dev tclsh libssl-devThen clone sqlcipher and install it:
git clone https://github.com/sqlcipher/sqlcipher.git
cd sqlcipher
./configure --enable-tempstore=yes CFLAGS="-DSQLITE_HAS_CODEC" LDFLAGS="-lcrypto -lsqlite3"
make && sudo make install- Install Homebrew.
- Run
brew install openssl sqlcipher
Ubuntu on WSL2 should work! That is, install WSL2 and Ubuntu on Windows, and then follow the For Linux instructions and feel your way forward. But probably just give up here and use the Docker method instead.
Then you're ready to install signal-export:
(Note the [all] that has been added!)
pip install signal-export[all]Then you should be able to use the Usage instructions as above.
git clone https://github.com/carderne/signal-export.git
cd signal-export
pip install -e .[dev]
pre-commit installRun tests with:
pytest --cov=sigexport --cov-report=term-missing tests/
tox- signal-backup-decode might be easier if you use Android!
- signal2html also Android only