Google Chat messages are exported through Google Takeout, which packages your Chat history into an archive you download. It includes your direct messages, group messages and spaces with their attachments, but group messages and spaces created by users with a work or school account are left out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Google’s own Chat help page<\/a> covers this in a few short paragraphs and hands the rest to its general guide to downloading your Google data<\/a>. This page puts the two together for Chat, including the limits that only appear near the bottom of the second one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Google’s Chat help page lists three things in the download. Your user profile information. Your memberships in direct messages, group messages and spaces. And the messages themselves, along with their attachments, from direct messages, group messages and spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is your Chat history as a whole, not one conversation. Neither of Google’s two help pages on this describes a way to export a single chat, and the Takeout guide states that exporting data for a chosen time period is not currently supported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Google describes the purpose plainly: an archive to keep for your records, or data to use in another service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Chat help page states that group messages and spaces created by users with a work or school account won’t export as part of your Chat history. So a group or space that someone started from their work account is not in your personal export.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the account you use for Chat is itself a work or school account, Google tells you to contact your administrator. The Takeout guide gives the reason: Google Workspace administrators can manage whether users can download data from different products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An organisation’s super administrator can download the organisation’s data instead. Even then, according to the Chat help page, group messages and spaces created by users from outside the domain are not available in that export.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These steps follow Google’s Takeout guide, with the product selection narrowed to Chat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Google notes that you may be asked to enter your Google Account password again before the download starts, and that an account with 2-Step Verification turned on may get an extra verification step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Four settings appear before the export is created. Each has a consequence the Takeout guide spells out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Delivery method.<\/strong> Send download link via email delivers a link to your inbox. Add to Drive puts the archive in your Google Drive, where it counts toward your storage. Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive and Box are also offered. Google states that once an archive reaches one of those three, Google is no longer responsible for it and the provider’s own terms apply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Export type.<\/strong> A one time archive is a single export. A scheduled export creates an archive of your selected data every 2 months for one year, with the first one made immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n File type.<\/strong> Zip files open on almost any computer. Tgz files may need additional software on Windows, and Google notes that tgz archives can’t have unicode characters in file names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Archive size.<\/strong> If your data is larger than the size you choose, Takeout splits it into several archives. Choosing the 50GB limit makes a split less likely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Google says an archive can take anything from a few minutes to a few days, depending on how much is in the account, and that most people get the link the same day they ask for it. Accounts enrolled in the Advanced Protection Program have the archive scheduled for two days in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The link does not last. An archive expires in about 7 days, and each archive can be downloaded 5 times. After either limit, you request a new one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The archive is a snapshot. Google states that changes made to your data between the request and the moment the archive is created may not be included.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Exporting removes nothing. Google states that downloading your data does not delete it from Google’s servers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Google recommends downloading and viewing Takeout exports on a desktop computer rather than a mobile device. Inside the archive is a file named archive_browser.html, which describes the file formats and how to open them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Per the Takeout guide, HTML files open in any standard browser, and CSV and JSON files open in a text editor such as TextEdit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Google’s tip for anyone sending an archive to another provider is to review the data yourself to understand what is shared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you also have conversations on Telegram, the guide to exporting your Telegram chat history<\/a> covers its desktop export and what its JSON file contains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An export is only a file until something reads it. Portraitor takes an exported conversation and looks for patterns in how one person writes. Its home page describes analysing language patterns rather than people, and names tone, attachment, communication style and emotional cues as what it looks for. The home page guides you through exporting from WhatsApp, Telegram, Messenger and Instagram, and its uploader accepts .txt, .html, .json or .zip files. Google Chat is not one of the four platforms it guides you through, so if you want a portrait today, start from a conversation on one of those.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two things the home page states about the file you give it. Names, emails and numbers are stripped on your device before anything is sent, and nothing is stored on its servers. You can see how Portraitor works<\/a> before uploading anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once the archive is open, what an AI returns from a chat export<\/a> covers what a portrait contains, what it costs, and what the privacy policy says happens to the conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat does a Google Chat export include?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Why are some Google Chat conversations missing from the export?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
How do you export Google Chat messages step by step?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Which Google Takeout settings should you choose for Chat?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
How long does a Google Chat export take, and how long does the link last?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
How do you open the archive once you have it?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What you can do with the export<\/h2>\n\n\n\n