How to save WhatsApp messages as evidence, properly

Disclosure: we make Chatcove, one of the tools that can produce this kind of export.

Why screenshots are usually the weakest option

Screenshots are what most people reach for, and they have four problems that tend to surface at the worst moment:

• They are trivially editable. Anyone can alter a screenshot in a few minutes, which means anyone can argue that you did.
• They are fragments. A screenshot shows a few messages. The obvious response is to ask what was directly before and after.
• Timestamps are partial. The interface often shows a time but not a full date, and not the timezone.
• They look selective, because they are. You chose what to capture.

A complete export of the whole conversation is harder to challenge for exactly the reason it feels uncomfortable: it contains the parts that do not help you.

What a good export looks like

1. The complete conversation, not a selected range, unless your lawyer specifically tells you otherwise.
2. Full timestamps on every message, with the date, not just a time of day.
3. Clearly identified senders, resolved to names or numbers rather than internal ids.
4. Media in place, with each attachment at the point in the thread where it was sent.
5. A record of how and when it was produced. Chatcove writes a manifest with each export describing what was written and when.

Preserve the original, not just the export

This is the step people skip, and it is the most important one on the page. An export is a derived document. Its value later depends on the source still existing.

• Keep the encrypted iPhone backup. Copy it somewhere safe and leave it alone. Note the password somewhere you will not lose it.
• Do not wipe or trade in the phone if the matter is live. Ask your lawyer first.
• Do not delete messages from the conversation, including your own. In many jurisdictions destroying material once a dispute is reasonably in prospect is itself a serious problem.
• Write down what you did and when. Which device, which date, which tool, which version. This costs five minutes now and is impossible to reconstruct later.

Be sceptical of certain claims

Some products in this space market themselves as producing “court-ready” or “certified” exports. Treat that language carefully. Software can produce a faithful, complete, timestamped document. It cannot make that document admissible, and it cannot authenticate itself. Authentication is a process involving people, and in contested cases often a forensic examiner working from the original device or backup rather than from any app's output.

Anything promising more than a faithful export is selling you certainty that is not theirs to sell.

Doing it with Chatcove

1. Connect the iPhone and let Chatcove make the encrypted backup.
2. Read the conversation and check it is complete and correct. Free, before you pay anything.
3. Export the whole conversation. PDF if it needs to be printed or filed, HTML if voice notes matter, since a PDF cannot play audio.
4. Keep the backup and note what you did.

Everything runs on your Mac, with no account and no upload. For a matter involving private correspondence, that a third party never receives your conversation is worth something on its own.

Common questions