How to export a WhatsApp chat
Two phones, two slightly different menus, one file at the end. Here is the short version, with the parts that actually matter for the upload.
Vista previa gratisSin tarjetaSe borra según un calendario
The file is all you need
Ejemplo ficticio
23:41, and the Last Message of the Night
Start with the night this group worked, because it did work, and it is the reason the rest of this report is not a complaint.
Open the conversation you want read
Android: open the chat and tap the three-dot menu. iPhone: open the chat and tap the name at the top of the screen. The export applies to the chat you opened — there is no way to pick individual messages, and there is no need to.
Choose Export chat
Android: the three-dot menu, then More, then Export chat. iPhone: the contact or group info screen, scrolled to the bottom, then Export Chat.
Answer the media question with “Without media”
WhatsApp asks whether to attach media. Choose without. Nothing Clark reads is inside a photo or a voice note, and the file you have to handle stays small.
Save the file, or send it to yourself
Android hands you a .zip and asks where to send it — a mail app or a file manager both work, as long as the attachment survives. iPhone produces a .zip too, usually shared through Mail or Files. If the chat contains no media you may get a plain .txt instead, which is normal and uploads the same way.
Upload the .zip or the .txt
Drop the saved file into the upload step. The archive is opened in your browser, the text file inside it is read there, and the media is discarded before anything is sent. You then see the message count and the signal strength for that file.
What happens to the zip
The .zip does not leave your device. It is opened in the browser tab you are looking at, the text file inside it is extracted there, and everything else in the archive — photos, videos, voice notes, stickers, documents — is dropped at that point.
What is uploaded is the text of the conversation: who said what, and when. That part does reach our servers, because it is what has to be read to write the report. The safety notes spell out what happens to it afterwards, including exactly when it is deleted.
Should you include media when exporting?
No. Choose “Without media” on the export screen. There is nothing in a photo or a voice note that Clark can quote, and including them can turn a file of a few hundred kilobytes into a few hundred megabytes.
The text is where the pattern is: who proposes, who answers, what repeats, and which week the tone changed. Leaving media out loses none of that.
Which file types are accepted
Both .zip and .txt. WhatsApp produces a .zip when the chat contains media and a plain .txt when it does not, and either one uploads the same way.
If a .zip turns out to contain more than one conversation, the one with the most messages is the one that gets read — and the upload step tells you which conversation that was, so you are not left guessing about which thread was analysed.
If the export looks wrong
The most common mistake is exporting the wrong chat, because WhatsApp exports whichever conversation you had open. If the message count on the upload step is far smaller than you expected, export again from the right thread. The count is shown before you go any further, so a wrong file costs you a minute, not a report.
How to Export a WhatsApp Chat: what people ask
How do I export a WhatsApp chat without the media?+
Open the conversation, choose Export chat, and answer the media question with “Without media”. Android does it from the three-dot menu, then More, then Export chat; iPhone does it from the contact or group info screen, scrolled to the bottom.
Where does WhatsApp save the exported chat?+
Android hands you a .zip and asks where to send it — a mail app or a file manager both work, as long as the attachment survives. iPhone produces a .zip too, usually shared through Mail or Files. If the chat contains no media you may get a plain .txt instead, which is normal and uploads the same way.
Should I upload the .zip or the .txt?+
Both. WhatsApp produces a .zip when the chat contains media and a plain .txt when it does not, and either one uploads the same way. If a .zip turns out to contain more than one conversation, the one with the most messages is the one that gets read, and the upload step tells you which conversation that was.
Do I need the other person’s phone to export the chat?+
No. The export is made from the device that holds the conversation, and it is your own copy of a chat you are already in. Nobody in the conversation is notified that the file was read.
Why is my exported file so large?+
Because media was included. Choose “Without media” on the export screen: there is nothing in a photo or a voice note that Clark can quote, and leaving media out is what keeps a few hundred kilobytes from becoming a few hundred megabytes.
You have the file. Now read it.
Drop the .zip or the .txt into the upload step and Clark takes it from there: the media is stripped in your browser, the message count is shown to you before you go on, and the opening of the report is free to read.
Upload a WhatsApp exportWhere to go next
WhatsApp moves these labels around between versions and platforms. If a menu on your phone reads slightly differently, the shape of the flow is the same: pick the chat, choose Export chat, answer the media question, keep the file, upload it here.