How can I read the chat logs from WhatsApp messenger on my Windows machine?

Question

How can I copy over the whatsApp chat messages to a text editor? Are there any specific files I need to copy? I don't care for the media files, I just need the transcript of chat.

I am using the Motorola G phone.

I have noticed the files are stored using some encryption on the phone. I am able to copy the files from the phones internal memory to my Windows 7 computer. The files look something like this msgstore-2014-01-08.1.db.crypt

Opening the file in a text editor gives out a bunch of unprintable characters. Since this is encrypted data, I expected that to happen. So how can I decrypt this text file on my windows computer?

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Answer 1

The simplest method is to use the EMAIL CONVERSATION option from within a conversation.

Tap the overflow menu (3 dots), the MORE > EMAIL CONVERSATION.

That brings up a popup allowing you to either attach media files or send the chat without the media files.

There's also Whatsapp Toolbox which has similar functionality but requires ROOT access.