bagoup (pronounced BAAGoop) is an export utility for Mac OS Messages, implemented in Go, inspired by Baskup. It exports all of the conversations saved in Messages to readable, searchable text or PDF files.
$ cat "messages-export/Novak Djokovic/iMessage;-;+3815555555555.txt"
[2020-03-01 15:34:05] Me: Want to play tennis?
<attached: tennisballs.jpeg>
[2020-03-01 15:34:41] Novak: I can't today. I'm still at the Dubai Open
[2020-03-01 15:34:53] Me: Ah, okay. When are you back in SF?
[2020-03-01 15:35:23] Novak: Possibly next month. I'll let you know
[2020-03-01 15:35:50] Me: 👍
brew install wkhtmltopdf
brew tap tagatac/bagoup
brew install bagoup
The Messages database is a protected file in Mac OS. See this article for more details. Additionally, attachments can be located in various protected places on your filesystem.
To to backup your messages, you have two options. If you wish to export to PDFs
with images (--pdf
flag), or to copy attachments (--copy-attachments
flag), you must use
the first option.
From osxdaily.com:
If you choose this option, bagoup will be able to open chat.db in its
default location, and the --db-path
flag is not needed.
Copy the Messages database to an unprotected folder in Finder, and provide the
path to the copy via the --db-path
flag.
If you provide your contacts via the --contacts-path
flag, bagoup will attempt
to match the handles from the Messages database with full names from your
contacts list, labeling the folders with full names and each message with first
names. Otherwise, phone numbers and email addresses will be used.
The contacts file must be in vCard format and can be obtained, e.g., from the Contacts app or Google Contacts.
Usage:
bagoup [OPTIONS]
Application Options:
-i, --db-path= Path to the Messages chat database file (default:
~/Library/Messages/chat.db)
-o, --export-path= Path to which the Messages will be exported (default:
messages-export)
-m, --mac-os-version= Version of Mac OS, e.g. '10.15', from which the
Messages chat database file was copied (not needed if
bagoup is running on the same Mac)
-c, --contacts-path= Path to the contacts vCard file
-s, --self-handle= Prefix to use for for messages sent by you (default:
Me)
--separate-chats Do not merge chats with the same contact (e.g.
iMessage and SMS) into a single file
-p, --pdf Export text and images to PDF files (requires full
disk access)
--include-ppa Include plugin payload attachments (e.g. link
previews) in generated PDFs
-a, --copy-attachments Copy attachments to the same folder as the chat which
included them (requires full disk access)
-r, --preserve-paths When copying attachments, preserve the full path
instead of co-locating them with the chats which
included them
-t, --attachments-path= Root path to the attachments (useful for re-running
bagoup on an export created with the
--copy-attachments and --preserve-paths flags)
(default: /)
-e, --entity= An entity name to include in the export (matches the
folder name in the export, e.g. "John Smith" or
"+15551234567"). If given, other entities' chats will
not be exported. If this flag is used multiple times,
all entities specified will be exported.
-v, --version Show the version of bagoup
Help Options:
-h, --help Show this help message
All conversations will be exported as text (default) or PDF files (--pdf
flag) to the specified export
path. See example-exports for
an example export directory structure for each option.
Export to plaintext is fast. For example, on an M2 MacBook Air, exporting 19,621 messages from 144 chats to 138 files, as well as copying 1,214 attachments, took 17.2s.
Export to PDF is significantly slower, bottlenecked by PDF creation with
wkhtmltopdf
. Exporting the same data from above on the same MacBook took
9m32s, more than 30x slower than the export to plaintext.
Copyright (C) 2020-2023 David Tagatac
See cmd/bagoup/main.go for usage terms.