Nothing is forever, not even WhatsApp chats. Backing up to Google Drive is a good first step, but if you’d rather save your chats the old-fashioned way, you’ll probably want to. export them and save them yourself.
WhatsApp has a feature to export our chats, which saves an entire chat as files that you can refer to later, but it’s far from perfect. There is a better way to record whatsapp chat: with Telegram.
How to export WhatsApp chat
If WhatsApp already allows us to export a chat in just a few clicks, why are we going to complicate our lives? The answer to this question can be found in the result of exporting a WhatsApp chat: a plain text file is generated which does not make it easy for us to see the chat again later.
The way WhatsApp saves a chat generates a lot of files: a TXT with the text and images, photos and videos separately, each in a file. It’s a mess that’s hard to refer to later.
How to export a Telegram chat
On the other hand we have Telegram, which also allows us to export an entire chat, although only from Telegram Desktop. In return, the result is much more readable and what it generates are HTML files with our conversation, which we can see in a fairly acceptable format in any browser.
Instead of having a plain text file and lots of images, Telegram chat exports show us the messages in a way similar to how we see them in chat and with the stickers and images in the chat itself.
The trick: switching from WhatsApp to Telegram
Taking into account the above, we can take advantage of one of the most interesting features of Telegram: import WhatsApp chats. The idea is the following: import the WhatsApp chat that we want to save in Telegram then export it. convoluted? Yes, useful? Also.
These are a few steps but the truth is that they are all simple. First, you will need to open the chat you want to save in WhatsApp on mobile and use the context menu to choose export chat. It is recommended to choose later include files and the next step will be to tap on Telegram from the list of applications.
Then comes the time to choose the destination chat in Telegram. Ideally, you should import the messages into the conversation with the same person, as they will also be visible to the other person.
The process can take a while if the chat history is longso a little patience. When complete, the imported messages will be located in chronological order in the chat and highlighted with text imported next to the date
With this you have WhatsApp chat safe in Telegram and accessible from all your devices thanks to the application cloud, but we still have to export it. This you have to do it from Telegram Desktop, since the option does not yet exist in the mobile application. In Telegram Desktop, open the chat you want to export and from its menu choose export chat.
Telegram gives you a lot of control over exporting a chat, so you can choose precisely what should be included: photos, videos, voice messages, video messages, stickers, animated GIFs and files of the size we indicate.
The default settings should suffice, so just press Export to start the process. If this is your first time exporting a chat from this computer, you will need to confirm the action from another of your paired devices (such as your mobile), for security reasons.
The export may take a few minutes, depending on the length of the chat and the number of files attached, but once complete you will receive a validation window where you can directly open the creation.
Open HTML file in the browser and you will finally have your WhatsApp chat history, which is now from Telegram, in the form of documents that you can take from place to place and consult later, with or without an Internet connection.
Exporting imported messages looks a little weird, but it’s still better than WhatsApp
WhatsApp messages imported into Telegram they look a little weird in this exported chat, although they are still easier to refer to later than the basic text file generated by WhatsApp.
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