I think this is a pretty niche demand and probably another topic for r/DataHoarder but anyway, here I am.

I created this application to basically have a way to store my WhatsApp messages away from the Google/Meta servers. Or at least not depend so much on Google backup.

Whatsapp has a very limited export functionality, which any user can use through the app’s own interface. Once these messages and media have been exported, you can place them in a folder monitored by ChatVault, send them to an email monitored by ChatVault or upload them via the interface. Once ingested by chatvault, it will record the chat media on disk and save the messages in a database in a structured way. These messages can be accessed in a front end similar to a chat application.

It’s still under development, some things need to be improved (mainly the UI), it’s still far from ideal, it’s true, the way Whatsapp allows us to export messages is quite bad, which makes the entire process of exporting and ingesting it into chatvault quite coupled but it can still be useful for those who want to store their messages independently, just like I wanted.

https://github.com/vitormarcal/chatvault

Edit: add an application interface image

The UI still needs some work, but it serves the purpose

  • teslawhytho@alien.topBEnglish
    0·
    10 months ago

    Please don’t take this as criticism, this is a great idea and I fully plan on contributing to the codebase.

    With that said I spent a few hours trying to get it to work. No luck. Docker, no. Docker compose. No.

    I took the code and built / run manually. That worked but then I couldn’t import a chat. I tested with one line with no attachments. From just that one line, here are the problems so far:

    • it doesn’t seem like WhatsApp has a standard way of exporting the text file. Your text file and my text file are different. In the US the format is [datetime] name msg. In your file it’s different and so it breaks the moment it hits the [.
    • unfortunately not accounting for locale. US stupidly uses mm/dd/yy. You have hardcoded the formatter for dd/mm/yy. Maybe you need to have a locale selection in the UI before import. Without that, no US messages are coming in.
    • it doesn’t account for 6/6/23. It’s expecting 06/06/2023. Again formatter and padding can fix that.
    • ui creates an entry in chats table for every attempt regardless of if a message was imported.
    • exceptions in other languages.
    • missing tests for the stuff above

    Again none of that is supposed to be criticism. This is a great idea and I fully intend to help out with it.

    Good job!