Download ChatExport
ChatExport 0.5.1 for Windows is here, and what you download is a free trial. It is the whole program: every format, photos, attachments, encrypted backups and the SHA256 evidence hash. Exported documents carry a watermark and stop at the 50 most recent messages in a conversation until a licence lifts both, which is on sale now. The pricing page has the detail.
The trial also answers the question most people arrive with. The export screen counts how many messages of the conversation you picked are still in the phone’s Recently Deleted store, which on iOS 16 and later holds roughly the last 30 days, and how many were edited or unsent. That count is not limited in the trial and it costs nothing: what is being read is your own backup, on your own PC, before you decide anything.
The installer is code-signed, so Windows names the publisher, BOKART Krzysztof Kowalski, instead of an unknown one. SmartScreen may still interrupt the first run anyway: that panel is about how many people have downloaded a file, not about whether it is signed, and a certificate issued this month has no such history yet. The section below says what it claims and what to click.
If you would rather look before you install
- Open the sample exports. They are real documents the app produced, not mockups, and they open in your own reader. No email address, no sign-up.
- Or ask first: support@getchatexport.com. Say what you are trying to export and roughly how large the conversation is, and you get an answer from a person.
What it needs
- Windows 10 or Windows 11, 64-bit. There is no Windows 7 build and no 32-bit build, and there will not be one. There is no macOS version yet either.
- A local iPhone backup, made by Apple’s own software: the Apple Devices app or iTunes. ChatExport reads that folder. It does not talk to the phone.
- Disk space for that backup, which is the big number: budget roughly as much as is used on the phone. The exported file itself is a few megabytes for a normal conversation.
If your browser asks before it keeps the file
This happens before Windows is involved at all, and it is a different question from the one below. Edge and Chrome both judge a download by how often they have seen that exact file, and a release published this month has hardly been seen. So the installer may arrive in your download list with a warning beside it and a button to keep it, instead of simply arriving. Nothing was found in the file. That check counts how widely a file has spread, which is the one thing a new release cannot have yet. The checksum further down settles the question without asking you to take anybody’s word for it, and that is why it is published.
If SmartScreen stops you anyway
Windows may still put a blue panel in front of the installer: “Windows protected your PC”. Choose More info, then Run anyway. It is worth knowing what that panel says and what it does not. It says the file has not been downloaded by many people yet. It does not say anything was found in it, and it does not say the file is unsigned: the publisher line inside that same panel names the company that signed it. Reputation is something a file and its certificate accumulate over downloads and time, and a certificate issued this month starts with none. It is the one thing a small publisher cannot buy on the first day.
Check the file yourself
The signature tells Windows who built this installer. The checksum below tells you that the copy on your disk is the copy that was published, which is a different question and the one you can settle without trusting anybody. Every release is published with it. In PowerShell, in the folder you downloaded it to:
Get-FileHash "chatexport-setup-0.5.1.exe" -Algorithm SHA256
For this release it has to print exactly this:
060B1031A62879754961FA969CD3A39E6AA1DFD94DC86CAA726382E4B04E2CDE
If it prints anything else, do not run the file, and tell me: support@getchatexport.com.
What it costs
The download is a free trial. A one-time licence lifts the watermark and the 50-message limit, it is on sale now, and there will never be a subscription. The pricing page has the rest.
Get it
Windows 10 & 11 · 64-bit · Version 0.5.1