iMessage-exporter, a full-featured CLI app and library
I've spent a long time reverse engineering nearly every aspect of Apple's iMessage SQLite tables to build this program. As far as I know, there are no other tools that support the full corpus of iMessage features, including edited messages, app messages, reactions, and threads. I built this software to preserve some conversations with loved ones; I hope others find it useful as well. For the curious, here are some of the more interesting aspects of the database I came across: - Dates are stored as Unix timestamp with an epoch of 1/1/2001 00:00:00 - Messages can have multiple parts,…
In plain words
iMessage-exporter is a command-line tool and library that extracts and preserves iMessage conversations from Apple's database. It supports edited messages, app messages, reactions, and threaded conversations by reverse-engineering iMessage's SQLite structure. The tool is designed for users who want to archive and export their message history, particularly for personal preservation purposes.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
I've spent a long time reverse engineering nearly every aspect of Apple's iMessage SQLite tables to build this program. As far as I know, there are no other tools that support the full corpus of iMessage features, including edited messages, app messages, reactions, and threads. I built this software to preserve some conversations with loved ones; I hope others find it useful as well. For the curious, here are some of the more interesting aspects of the database I came across: - Dates are stored as Unix timestamp with an epoch of 1/1/2001 00:00:00 - Messages can have multiple parts, denoted by some special invisible characters - Reactions are stored by prefixing the GUID of the reacted message with the index of the message part [0]. - URL messages cache data in the table, which we can parse and display [1]. - Edited messages store the history message edits [2] (I wanted to try out DDD here, which was fun!). [0]: https://docs.rs/imessage-database/latest/imessage_database/m... [1]: https://docs.rs/imessage-database/latest/imessage_database/m... [2]: https://docs.rs/imessage-database/latest/imessage_database/m...
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