How to export a WhatsApp chat to Excel or CSV
A spreadsheet is the right shape when you want to count, filter or search messages rather than read them: who said what and when, how many orders came in last month, every message that mentions an address. Here is how to get there from an iPhone, free and paid.
Short answer
WhatsApp cannot export straight to Excel: its Export Chat gives a text file you have to split into columns yourself. A Mac app that reads an encrypted iPhone backup, such as Chatcove, writes a CSV with one row per message (UTC time, sender, text) that opens directly in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets.
The free way, and where it stops
WhatsApp can export one conversation as a text file. On the iPhone, open the chat, tap the name at the top, scroll to Export Chat, and choose Without Media. Save the file to your Mac.
Excel can open it with Data, From Text/CSV, but what you get is one column of lines like [14/03/2026, 09:30:00] Anna: See you at 6. To make a real table you split each line into date, time, sender and text. It is doable with Text to Columns or a formula, with three catches:
- Multi-line messages break it. A message with line breaks continues on the next row without a date, so it no longer lines up.
- The date format follows the phone's region settings, so a file from one phone may parse differently from another.
- One chat per export, and very long chats are capped, so a whole history means many exports and some missing early messages.
If you are comfortable with Python, there are open-source converters that turn that text file into a CSV or XLSX locally on your computer. For one chat, that is a fine free answer.
A clean CSV of every chat with Chatcove
Chatcove reads your WhatsApp history from an encrypted iPhone backup on your Mac, so it works from the source data rather than from a text export. Its CSV export gives you one row per message with fixed columns:
| Column | What it holds |
|---|---|
| chat | The conversation the message belongs to |
| timestamp | Date and time in UTC, ISO 8601, e.g. 2026-03-14T09:30:00Z |
| sender_name | Who sent it, by contact name, or Me for your own messages |
| sender_id | The sender's phone number or WhatsApp ID where one is stored; empty for your own messages |
| direction | in for received, out for sent |
| kind | text, image, video, voice, audio, document, sticker, contact, location, deleted or system |
| text | The message text (empty for a photo or file sent on its own) |
| media_filename | The attachment's file name, for media messages |
- Connect your iPhone to your Mac and open Chatcove. It makes the encrypted backup; you enter your passcode on the phone once.
- Pick one chat, several, or all of them, and choose CSV as the format.
- Optionally set a date range, choose whether senders appear by contact name or by phone number, and tick the combined option to get one
all-chats.csvas well as a file per chat. - Open the file in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets.
The files are UTF-8 with a byte-order mark, so emoji, accents and right-to-left languages open correctly in Excel without an import wizard. Fields are quoted properly, so a message with commas or line breaks stays in one cell.
Reading your history in the app is free. Exporting every chat is the part that costs $9, once, for up to 2 Macs; the free trial includes 3 exports of one chat each, so you can check the CSV in your own spreadsheet first.
Turning UTC into your local time
The timestamp column is in UTC so the file is unambiguous wherever it is opened. To add a local-time column in Excel or Google Sheets, put this in an empty column (the example assumes the timestamp is in column B and you are two hours ahead of UTC; change 2/24 to your offset):
=DATEVALUE(LEFT(B2,10))+TIMEVALUE(MID(B2,12,8))+2/24
Format the column as a date and time, and fill it down. Remember that daylight saving changes the offset during the year.
Things people do with it
Count and compare
A pivot table on sender_name shows who sends the most in a group. Group the timestamp by month to see how a conversation's volume changed over the years.
Find things fast
Filter kind to document to list every file anyone sent, or search the text column for an address, an amount or an order number across every chat at once.
Keep records
Small businesses use the CSV to keep a dated log of customer orders and agreements. There is a separate guide on keeping customer chat records.
When a spreadsheet is the wrong format
A CSV is for analysis. It names attachments but does not contain them, and it is not pleasant to read as a conversation. If you want to read, print or hand a chat to someone, export to PDF or HTML instead, which keep the photos and voice notes in place. You can export the same chats in more than one format.
Common questions
Can WhatsApp export a chat straight to Excel?
No. WhatsApp's own Export Chat produces a plain text file, one conversation at a time. You can import that into Excel, but you have to split each line into date, sender and message yourself, and messages that span several lines break the pattern.
Can I export a WhatsApp group chat to Excel?
Yes. In a CSV from Chatcove every row names its sender, so a group chat becomes one sheet you can filter or pivot by person. Your own messages are labelled Me.
Can I get all my chats into one spreadsheet?
Yes. Tick the combined option when exporting to CSV and Chatcove writes one all-chats.csv alongside the per-chat files, with a column saying which chat each message came from.
Why do emoji or non-Latin text look broken when I open a CSV in Excel?
Usually because the file is UTF-8 without a byte-order mark, and Excel guesses the wrong encoding. Chatcove writes its CSV files as UTF-8 with the mark, so Excel opens them correctly, including right-to-left languages.
Are the times in the CSV in my time zone?
No, they are in UTC, written as ISO 8601 (for example 2026-03-14T09:30:00Z), so the file means the same thing wherever it is opened. This page shows a one-line formula to convert them to your local time.