Open iMessage files in your browser
Every iMessage and text a Mac or an iPhone keeps, in one database. Read its conversations right here, on a Mac, a PC or a phone. Nothing leaves your device.
Or drop it anywhere on this page
What you'll see
Your chat opens as its conversation, each message in a bubble in its sender's color, with the days, replies, reactions and calls, and the photos and voice notes the export holds.
- Every conversation • Each person in a color of their own
- Search • Every match counted, and a date jumps to its day
- Stats • Who wrote how much, by hour, weekday and month
- Export • Save as PDF, CSV or text
About iMessage
Apple's Messages keeps every iMessage and SMS conversation in a SQLite database: chat.db in a Mac's Library, under Messages, and sms.db in an iPhone's backup, stored under a hashed name. Since macOS Ventura much of a message's text is kept only in Apple's own archive format, not as plain text.
People open it to keep years of texts when they switch to Android, for evidence, or to read old chats on Windows, where no app of Apple's reads them. In a database browser it's tables of numbers, with times counted in nanoseconds from 2001.
Filepeek reads every conversation into bubbles, yours on the right, with tapbacks, replies, edits and unsent messages, and the text Apple archives read too. Photos open from the Attachments folder dropped with it, Search counts every match, a date jumps to its day, Stats shows who wrote how much and when, and Export saves a conversation as PDF, CSV or text.
Messages database
.db
Format
- MIME type
- application/vnd.sqlite3
- Made by
- Apple's Messages
- Released
- 2012
Inside the file
- Kept in
- A SQLite database
- Times
- Nanoseconds since 2001
- Attachments
- In the Attachments folder beside it
- Written by
- Messages on a Mac or an iPhone
Opens in every browser
Filepeek opens Messages' databases in Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari, however many conversations they hold. On their own, browsers only download them.
- YouChromeOpens through Filepeek
- YouEdgeOpens through Filepeek
- YouFirefoxOpens through Filepeek
- YouSafariOpens through Filepeek
Apps that open iMessage
- WindowsNo app reads it • Apple's Messages is only on Macs and iPhones
- MacMessages, only on the Mac it came from
- iPhone and iPadMessages, only on the iPhone it came from
- AndroidNo app reads it
Questions
Where is chat.db on my Mac?
In Finder, choose Go, then Go to Folder, and type ~/Library/Messages. Copy chat.db, and the Attachments folder for the photos, then drop them here together.
Why are my newest messages missing?
Messages keeps its latest changes in chat.db-wal beside the database until it writes them in. Drop the -wal file with chat.db, or quit Messages before you copy it.
Can it open an iPhone backup?
Yes. Drop the backup's folder on this page and pick Messages on its page, an encrypted backup with its password, and the photos open with it. On its own, sms.db is the file named 3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d28 in the folder 3d.
Why do people show as phone numbers?
Messages keeps only numbers and addresses, and their names live in Contacts, which the database doesn't hold.