Find messages in a WhatsApp export
Search an exported chat by phrase, sender or date, then save the messages with optional nearby conversation.
Start here
When you search for a phrase, you can include nearby messages to see the conversation around each match. These may be from other senders, but stay within your selected dates. They are labelled in the preview and downloads.
Export the chat from WhatsApp. If it comes in a ZIP, extract the .txt file and choose it here. Search for a phrase, or narrow the chat by sender and date. Line breaks in messages are kept; photos and other media appear only as the text placeholders in the export. Missing history cannot be recovered, and the result cannot be imported back into WhatsApp.
See an example input (made-up data)
28/09/2026, 09:30 - Ari: Our reservation is at 7 PM. 28/09/2026, 09:31 - Bo: Thanks! I will bring the booking reference. 28/09/2026, 09:32 - Ari: Reference: ABC123
Your result
What this can and cannot do
Supports Android “date, time - name: message” and iOS “[date, time] name: message” text exports. Choose the day/month order used in your file; ambiguous dates are not guessed. Limits: 15 MB and 50,000 messages. The HTML download opens in a browser without scripts or outside resources; the CSV download is a text table for spreadsheets. The synthetic example contains a made-up booking conversation.
Something missing or not working?
Tell us what happened or what would make this more useful. Only the message you write here is sent. Please leave out private files, passwords and customer details. You do not need to give an email address. This suggestion form cannot show replies. Use a private help request if you need a reply.