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Suberbia / UltimateChatRestorer

A tool for converting Telegram chat exports into a WhatsApp-compatible format. This script transforms JSON exports from Telegram into a plain text format that mirrors WhatsApp’s chat layout, making it easier to import chats back into Telegram or for use in other applications.
MIT License
59 stars 5 forks source link

Imported private chat shows up like all the messages were sent by one person #6

Open ristomatti opened 1 month ago

ristomatti commented 1 month ago

Thanks you for creating this, I was able to recover an important chat thanks to it! :pray:

However, I ran across an issue. After importing the chat, I noticed the resulting chat history had all the messages "sent" by the other person. The messages included the original senders name, so it could've been a lot better than no history at all. I had no idea if this is to be expected or not. I then read Telegram's blog post of the import feature. The illustrative video of exporting from WhatsApp seemed to indicate the result should show the imported messages like a normal conversation (just have the text "imported" on each message).

I then tried exporting a chat with the same person from WhatsApp. The end result was just like on the demo video. I then exported the WhatsApp chat again but into a zip file and checked how it differs.

The resulting _chat.txt after running the Python script had this format:

[2022/01/11, 16:53:27] - Alice: Hi Bob!
[2022/01/12, 20:26:40] - Bob: Hi!

The chat exported from WhatsApp was the same except without the square brackets or seconds. It also had the full name instead of just the firstname:

2022/01/11, 16:53 - Alice Doe: Hi Bob!
2022/01/12, 20:26 - Bob Smith: Hi!

Another difference was that the resulting zip file was WhatsApp Chat with Alice Doe.zip and the text file was named `WhatsApp Chat with Alice Doe.txt.

I then tried removed the square brackets and changed the names to include the lastname in the _chat.txt generated by the script. I left the seconds in the timestamps intact. I also renamed the text file and the zip file to match the one I exported from WhatsApp. When I imported this to Telegram, the chat history came out perfect. :sweat_smile:

Before testing with WhatsApp, I tried adding the lastname of both participants but it didn't work any better. I didn't test if it was removing the square brackets or naming the txt differently that did the trick though. It's also possible I made some error when initially trying if just changing the names would help.

deodorhunter commented 2 weeks ago

Thanks you for creating this, I was able to recover an important chat thanks to it! 🙏

However, I ran across an issue. After importing the chat, I noticed the resulting chat history had all the messages "sent" by the other person. The messages included the original senders name, so it could've been a lot better than no history at all. I had no idea if this is to be expected or not. I then read Telegram's blog post of the import feature. The illustrative video of exporting from WhatsApp seemed to indicate the result should show the imported messages like a normal conversation (just have the text "imported" on each message).

I then tried exporting a chat with the same person from WhatsApp. The end result was just like on the demo video. I then exported the WhatsApp chat again but into a zip file and checked how it differs.

The resulting _chat.txt after running the Python script had this format:

[2022/01/11, 16:53:27] - Alice: Hi Bob!
[2022/01/12, 20:26:40] - Bob: Hi!

The chat exported from WhatsApp was the same except without the square brackets or seconds. It also had the full name instead of just the firstname:

2022/01/11, 16:53 - Alice Doe: Hi Bob!
2022/01/12, 20:26 - Bob Smith: Hi!

Another difference was that the resulting zip file was WhatsApp Chat with Alice Doe.zip and the text file was named `WhatsApp Chat with Alice Doe.txt.

I then tried removed the square brackets and changed the names to include the lastname in the _chat.txt generated by the script. I left the seconds in the timestamps intact. I also renamed the text file and the zip file to match the one I exported from WhatsApp. When I imported this to Telegram, the chat history came out perfect. 😅

Before testing with WhatsApp, I tried adding the lastname of both participants but it didn't work any better. I didn't test if it was removing the square brackets or naming the txt differently that did the trick though. It's also possible I made some error when initially trying if just changing the names would help.

Hi, internet stranger here, hope this helps. Had the same bug today when trying to import a chat. The bug is at line 37 and 41

  # Prepare the message in a WhatsApp-like format
            whatsapp_message = f"{date} - {from_user}: {text}\n"

   # Handle non-string messages (e.g., media messages)
            if not isinstance(text, str):
                whatsapp_message = f"{date} - {from_user}: <Media omitted>\n"

Basically, if you look at a real Whatsapp export, there is no -, at least in single chats.

Pulling a rabbit out of my dev hat here, but I think this was intended to make it work with groups and multiple users, but it actually breaks single chat exports. It should either be a flag in the args or the script should auto detect the number of partecipants.

Everything worked flawlessly once I removed it. I'm on iOS if it helps.

Have a nice evening