To export a Messenger chat, open Accounts Centre from Messenger, choose Your information and permissions, then Export your information, Create export and Export to device. Meta prepares the file and notifies you when it is ready to download.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is no export button inside a Messenger conversation. Meta’s own help page sends you to one account wide tool, the same one Facebook uses, and you pick your messages out of it. This guide follows that page in its own order, for the phone app and for a computer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meta’s article Request a copy of your Messenger data<\/a> opens with one line on a computer: to export your Messenger information, visit the Export your information tool in Accounts Centre. That link goes to accountscenter.facebook.com, not to messenger.com. The thread you want is one item inside a much larger account export, and you narrow it down on the way in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The same page has a separate route for a DEMA, which the page spells out as a Deactivated except Messenger account. For that account the page lists four steps. On a computer, open messenger.com. Click your profile picture in the bottom left, then click Preferences<\/strong>. Click Export your information<\/strong>. On the new page that opens, click Create export<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you start from Facebook on a computer instead, Facebook’s guide to the tool, Download Your Information<\/a>, walks through Settings and privacy, then Settings, then Accounts Centre and Your information and permissions, and arrives at the same Export your information and Create export screens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meta’s Android and iPhone versions of the Messenger article give the same sequence. This is the route for exporting to the phone itself:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The page also documents a second option at step 8. Choose Export to external service<\/strong> instead, pick a service, connect to it, choose how often you want to export, then enter your profile password and tap Next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Step 9 is where the date range sits. If only a stretch of a long thread matters, Portraitor can also analyse only part of a chat<\/a> after the upload.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Messenger has a second help article that the Facebook guide does not mention: Download your data from Messenger end-to-end encrypted chats<\/a>. Its summary reads: \u201cSecure storage saves a copy of your end-to-end encrypted chats so you can download your messages later.\u201d The body, on every platform version Meta serves, is one sentence: \u201cThis feature is gradually being introduced and may not be available to you yet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A related page, Backups for end-to-end encrypted messages on Messenger<\/a>, says end-to-end encrypted messages are now automatically stored remotely in your backup, that this too is being introduced gradually, and that Meta cannot read end-to-end encrypted messages stored in your backup. Deleting messages removes them from the backup, and the page says you won’t be able to recover them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If an encrypted conversation does not appear the way you expect, Meta’s pages say only that the download for those chats is arriving gradually. They give no date, so check the encrypted chats article again rather than relying on an older guide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meta’s Facebook guide to the same tool sets out what happens after you tap Start export. When your export is ready, you have four days to download it from the Available downloads<\/strong> section of the Export your information tool. You get an email notification and a notification on Facebook when it is done, and the Past request section lets you delete an export or see earlier ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The same page names the two formats: you can choose to receive your information in an HTML or JSON format. You can also choose the quality of photos and videos, and the page notes that higher quality makes the download larger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Expect a password prompt. The page says Facebook will ask for your password before the download begins, may ask for additional verification, and that a download request expires after a few days, after which you can request a new one. It also lists two reasons a profile may not export at all: it is deactivated, or it is scheduled for deletion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Portraitor<\/a> lists Messenger as one of its four platforms, alongside WhatsApp, Telegram and Instagram. Its uploader says it accepts .txt, .html, .json or .zip, and for Messenger the home page notes that Export your info gives you a .zip file, so the archive can go in as it arrives. The full list is on which chat export files can be analysed<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The home page states that your chat is masked on your device before it is sent, and never stored on our servers. The privacy policy is more specific: before anything is transmitted, your browser removes names, email addresses, telephone numbers, postal addresses and credentials and replaces them with anonymous placeholders, and if that does not complete, no data is transmitted and your payment is refunded automatically. Photographs, videos and voice recordings in the export are never opened and never transmitted. What masking does and does not remove is set out in is it safe to upload your chat history<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nTen taps from the Messenger app on a phone<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Encrypted chats have a separate download that Meta is still rolling out<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Four days to collect the file, and the HTML or JSON choice<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What Portraitor does with a Messenger archive<\/h2>\n\n\n\n