Chat to PDF for WhatsApp documentation

Install Chat to PDF for WhatsApp

Chat to PDF for WhatsApp runs on macOS 14 Sonoma or later, on Apple silicon and Intel Macs. After buying, download the app zip from your Polar receipt, unzip it, and drag Chat to PDF for WhatsApp to your Applications folder.

The app is signed and notarized by Apple. Confirm Open at the normal first-launch prompt.

The app works without a license key. The key in your receipt turns on automatic updates: enter it in Chat to PDF for WhatsApp → License…. Once a day, the app checks for a new version, shows what’s new, and installs it with Install and Relaunch. Chat to PDF for WhatsApp → Check for Updates… checks right away. A key works on 3 Macs. To move it to another Mac, choose License… → Deactivate This Mac first. Your receipt always has the latest version, too.

Export the chat from WhatsApp

The app works with what WhatsApp makes when you export a chat. Do this on your phone:

Open the chat in WhatsApp.
On an iPhone, tap the chat’s name at the top, then Export chat. On Android, tap the three dots, then More and Export chat.
Pick the choice that includes the media to get the photos and videos too: With all media on an iPhone, Include media on Android. Without media gives the text only. Older versions of WhatsApp call these Attach Media and Without Media.
Send the file to your Mac. AirDrop, email, or a folder in iCloud Drive all work.

You get a zip file, like “WhatsApp Chat - Nora Field.zip” from an iPhone or “WhatsApp Chat with Hill walkers.zip” from Android. Inside there’s a text file with the messages (_chat.txt on an iPhone) and the photos, videos and voice notes.

Open the chat

The window says “Turn a WhatsApp chat into a PDF”. Drop the chat on it, or click Choose a Chat…, or choose File → Open Chat… (⌘O). Any of these work:

the zip file;
the folder you get when you unzip it;
the text file inside it.

The app shows “Reading WhatsApp Chat - Nora Field.zip…”, then the chat. A zip is unpacked into a temporary folder of the app’s own, never next to your file, and that folder is deleted when you open another chat or quit. Your chat is never changed, moved or deleted.

If the file isn’t a WhatsApp chat, the window says “This doesn’t look like a WhatsApp chat. Choose the zip file WhatsApp made when you exported the chat, the folder you unzipped, or the text file inside it.” If the zip is damaged, it asks you to export the chat again.

When a date reads two ways

Some phones write dates like 03/04/2023, which could be the 3rd of April or the 4th of March. The app looks at the whole chat to tell. A number above 12 settles it, and so do dates that would otherwise go backwards.

When every date in the chat still reads both ways, the window asks “Is 03/04/2023 the 3rd of April or the 4th of March?”, with a button for each answer. Your answer sets every date in the PDF. It happens with short chats, like one from a single day early in a month.

The chat and the choices

On the left, the chat as bubbles, with a heading for each day and the photos. On top, the chat’s name, the number of messages and the people.

On the right, the choices:

Choice	What it does
You are	Whose messages go on the right, the way you see them on your phone. Nobody puts every message on the left. In a chat between two people that’s named after one of them, the app picks the other one for you.
From and To	The first and last day to include. Both days are included whole.
Paper	A4 or Letter.
Text size	Small, Medium or Large. Everything on the page scales with it.
Show photos and videos	On, photos and the first frame of each video are printed inside their bubble. Off, each is a line with its file name.
Show seconds in the times	”21:03:12” instead of “21:03”.

The preview follows your choices, so you see which messages are in the dates you picked.

Save the PDF

Click Save PDF… (⌘S) and pick a name and a folder. The name starts as the chat’s name, like “Nora Field.pdf”. If a file with that name is there, macOS asks whether to replace it.

The window shows “Making the PDF…” with a progress bar. A long chat with many photos takes a minute. Cancel stops it, and nothing is left behind: the PDF appears only when it’s complete.

Then the window says what was saved, like “Saved “Nora Field.pdf”: 12 messages on 3 pages.”, and what isn’t in the PDF as it was in the chat, and why:

“1 photo, video or file was left out when the chat was exported. The PDF says where it was.”
“1 file named in the chat isn’t in the export, so the PDF names it: 00000018-PHOTO-2023-05-15-08-04-00.jpg.”
“2 voice notes and documents can’t go on paper, so the PDF names them.”
“You turned photos off, so the PDF names the 2 photos and videos instead of showing them.”

Show in Finder shows the PDF. Make Another PDF goes back to the same chat, to make a PDF of other dates or with other choices. Open Another Chat goes back to the start.

The PDF is opened again before the window says it’s saved, so a PDF the app calls saved is a PDF that opens.

What’s in the PDF

The first page has the chat’s name, then:


People	The people who wrote in the chat
Dates	The first and last day of the messages in the PDF
Messages	How many messages, not counting WhatsApp’s own lines
Made on	The day you made the PDF

Then the messages, with a heading for each day, like “Sunday, May 14, 2023”. Each bubble has the sender’s name and the time.

Photos are inside their bubble, turned the right way up, at a size that prints sharp.
A video is its first frame with a play sign, and its file name under it.
A voice note is a line like “Audio: PTT-20230515-WA0001.opus”. A document or a contact card is a line like “File: Route notes.pdf”.
A photo WhatsApp left out of the export is a line like “A photo was left out when the chat was exported.” From Android, where WhatsApp doesn’t say what the file was, it’s “A photo, video or file was left out when the chat was exported.”
A file named in the chat but not in the export is a line like “Photo: IMG-20230514-WA0007.jpg. It isn’t in the export.”
WhatsApp’s own lines, like “Nora Field added Priya Raman”, are centered in grey, with their time.
An edited message has “Edited” under its bubble.

Every page has, at the bottom, the chat’s name, “WhatsApp chat”, the day the PDF was made, and “Page 3 of 41”.

Emoji print in color, and Arabic and Hebrew read right to left. A long message continues on the next page under the sender’s name and “(continued)”. A short message is never split: it moves to the next page whole.

You can select and copy the text in the PDF, and search it in Preview.

Phones and languages

Exports from an iPhone and from Android both work. The app knows how WhatsApp writes dates and times in many languages: day or month first, with /, . or -, two or four digit years, 24 hours or AM and PM.

WhatsApp also writes a few words about attachments in your phone’s language, like “image omitted”, "" or “(file attached)”. The app knows them in English, Italian, German, Spanish and Portuguese.

In another language:

a photo, video or file that’s in the export is still found and shown, because the app looks for its file;
a line about a file WhatsApp left out may stay in the bubble as plain text.

Nothing is lost either way: a line the app doesn’t recognize is printed as it was written.

Privacy

Everything stays on your Mac. The app reads only the chat you choose, and nothing is uploaded. Once a day the app sends its license key to my update server, updates.flaviocopes.com, to check for a new version, and about once a week it checks the key with Polar, the shop. There are no accounts and no analytics.

Troubleshooting

The photos are missing

Where each photo was, the PDF has a line like “A photo was left out when the chat was exported.” Export the chat again and pick the choice that includes the media. WhatsApp can also leave some files out of an export. Then the PDF names each one where it was.

The dates look wrong

If the app asked whether a date was the 3rd of April or the 4th of March and you picked the wrong answer, click Open Another Chat, open the chat again, and pick the other one.

Messages are on the wrong side

Pick yourself in You are. The app only guesses when the chat is named after the other person, and in a group it can’t know.

It says it doesn’t look like a WhatsApp chat

Make sure you chose the zip WhatsApp made, the folder you unzipped, or the .txt file inside. A chat copied and pasted into a note, or a screenshot, can’t be read.

Chat to PDF for WhatsApp isn’t made by, affiliated with or endorsed by WhatsApp or Meta. WhatsApp is a trademark of Meta, used here only to say what the app works with.