Tdesktop: Save/export chat log

[alexkrolick]

As in most messaging and IRC clients

[shirishag75]

I am guessing s/he means saving messages and logs locally. +1 to that.

There should be an option of whether the user wants to save messages, pictures on the server or at his local drive/set-up.

[alexkrolick]

Yes, that's what I meant. In clients like Pidgin or XChat, I can save a copy of all the messages sent during a conversation to a log file. It would be nice to have that in Telegram.

[thybak]

Is this feature planned to be developed? It would be extremely helpful to us :+1:

[JordanSekky]

+1 Ideally this would be per-conversation, with another option to log every conversation.

[ezdev128]

+1
Also ability to export to .csv, xml or any else structured document with timestamps, media metadata/attributes and so on.

[jaflo]

+1
Totally support @ezdev128: Ability to export to something like csv. I would love to run text analysis on conversations.

[glngag]

+1!!!
Personal preference would be HTML, but .csv, .txt, xml all fine. There are third-party apps which can download images etc., so the text is the priority here.
NB: there are similar feature requests for the phone app/s, but one suggestion on those has been that it would make most sense to have this feature in the desktop app. I tend to agree with this.

[chaosdrop]

+1
Would be very awesome especially if it was a format like HTML where images can be exported inline as well, as conversations where you are sending a bunch of mockups back-and-forth make little sense without the images in context.

[zippl]

(I just copy my words from a similar request in hope to get it more attention...)

Having almost a full year of daily personal conversations and over thousand pictures shared in single conversations i am stunned this feature is still scarcely discussed at all...
But instead, regularly sticker updates... to make it feel someone is working on the app.

I would love to recommend telegram to others, but the lack of this essential feature as well as the (for me) unsatisfying way it is treated (even at all...) from official side has severe impact on their self-claimed image of transparency and responsibility in general.

I am still full of hope though, as the app is quiet young. In any case i would like to see at least a discussion about this feature by official side and (!) in their own FAQ-list...

And yes, i would even pay for this feature.. (and then, after saving my own property, deleting the app until they offer this feature by default.)

[hay]

+1
Right now the only way to do exports is using workarounds using telegram-cli, which is very inconvenient, especially for non-technical users.

[auchri]

@hay Someone could create a standalone backup tool with a nice gui, based on telegram cli :)

[JordanSekky]

​@hay I couldn't ever get any of the telegram-cli export scripts to work
for my chats. If you could point me in the right direction I would be very
greatful. I suspect that many of my chats having thousands of messages
doesn't agree with the cli very much.​

Jordan Sechler

On Wed, Dec 9, 2015 at 6:26 PM, auchri [email protected] wrote:

@hay https://github.com/hay Someone could create a standalone backup
tool with a nice gui, based on telegram cli :)

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop/issues/126#issuecomment-163434770
.

[fczuardi]

the telegram-cli solution doesnt find all my contacts and so cannot export the chat log from the group I am interested in :(

[PaulNerd]

+1 this is essential IMHO...
With the desktop client one can select at most 100 messages... copy/paste is really a chore.
Plus pictures are saved with the download timestamp, not the time they are sent, and that's another thing you have to do by hand.

[JordanSekky]

https://github.com/tvdstaaij/telegram-history-dump worked really well for me. Its the only script I've managed to get to actually export anything.

[zippl]

Any news about proper implementation?
When will we be able/allowed to save/export our property?

If you can "delete chat" with one button, why "export chat" is such a big issue? (Just technical question. About "morals" its clear that they want a "lock-in" system...)

[bcalik]

I would like to archive a conversation, but there is no archive feature, so I thought I can backup and delete the conversation, but there is no export feature too... Wtf telegram.

[Innomen]

Closed source server, no archive export, (encouraging users to leave their data on said server forever.) What could possibly go wrong? >.>

/smh (If only Signal had a handful of TG's quality of life features.)

Edit: Google Takeout is a thing for a reason. Plus that shows it's not just a legacy feature of irc and the like, or unique to chat apps. It's a basic principal best practices thing. Offsite backups are prudent across contexts.

This is a security weakness, not a "feature request."

[pindab0ter]

@Innomen I like what you're saying, not the way you're saying it in.

[Innomen]

@pindab0ter
Let me give you some relevant facts:

1. Offsite backups are industry-wide (and beyond) best practice.

2. TG themselves offer a 200k$ bounty on exploits, in bitcoin. So you Know they are doing offsite backups for that wallet.

3. Either I own my conversations or I don't. If I own it I wanna be able to download it and delete it. Them strongly encouraging me not to is deeply worrisome.

4. A libertarian is bankrolling this show. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Durov#Views) Think about what that means in the context of a guy wiki notes has been called: "the Mark Zuckerberg of Russia"

Honestly if I had known (I predate stickers and bots and channels) TG was gonna go in this development direction in lieu of a handful of basic missing features (log exports, spell check, multiple windows, contact differentiation, open source the server code, etc) I would not have allowed myself to become even remotely vendor locked. And I am making serious effort to extricate myself and my contacts from it entirely.

So trust me, I could be a LOT more harsh with my criticisms with very good reason.

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/56fb868e-1901-4976-8830-48096233d3f3

[Donokami]

I would love to export a conversation with friends.
If somebody could do something like that with the Desktop version, it would be amazing.

[birdie-github]

I'd like to chime in however my request is completely different: I want to be able to save/export secure chats from the Android Telegram app.

All the chats are saved in the cache4.db sqlite3 database, however they are all encrypted and I've no idea how to decrypt them. Even normal conversations are encrypted.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Telegram/comments/3u8lt0/qa_movebackup_encrypted_chats_to_new_phone/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Telegram/comments/565fau/export_telegram_secret_chat/
https://www.susanka.eu/files/master-thesis-final.pdf
https://github.com/tsusanka/telegram-extractor
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312304533_Forensic_Analysis_of_Secure_Ephemeral_Messaging_Applications_on_Android_Platforms

[maxoku]

Almost three years passed from the thread creation and there's still no solution? What is the problem here?

[naoliv]

I bet they will never allow to export our own data from Telegram.

[maxoku]

@naoliv
Who they? Telegram at all that keeps the data or desktop devs that makes the client?
Even if the Telegram itself wouldn't allow it, the desktop client still could do it at some point. It can load messages after all, so storing/exporting them shouldn't be a problem. I heard the android app can store them and some scripts can access and export them so I can't really understand what is the problem?

[stek29]

@maxoku

can't really understand what is the problem

Flood limits on server maybe?

[maxoku]

@stek29 What flood limits? lol

[Innomen]

@stek29

That definitely presents a valid problem set but I think they are solvable especially at first by a waiting list.

Google takeout no doubt has solved all these problems before.

Sure there would be a rush on the feature when it's first implemented but given how long we've waited for it to be made I don't think anyone would mind a wait for it to be run.

If it took a week for my log to slowly download, I'd be fine with that.

[maxoku]

@stek29 @Innomen
Well first thing would be to store messages locally and then save/export them from local database. Well old messages could take time to be downloaded, but new ones could be stored real time, so wouldn't have to be downloaded later or something.

[stek29]

@maxoku That's not so easy: in fact, lack of local db is one of main problems of TDesktop, which stops from implementing stuff like secret chats

@Innomen Well, using waiting or doing other stuff to avoid hitting limits is a hack imo, and it would never be added to official app.
Google Takeout is awesome, and I wish Telegram had something like that, but it never would.

I'd love if TDesktop was an FOSS project which does whatever it wants to, is driven by community only, accepts contributions from anyone, has perfect options system _(and is suitable for prousers and geeks only)_. But it's not. It's not a weechat or pidgin. We have to deal with it, or find some other app which suits us.

[birdie-github]

Here's an application which is able to backup Telegram (encrypted chats are not supported): https://github.com/fabianonline/telegram_backup A computer with Java SE installed is required.

[KarelWintersky]

it would very useful option

[ArmeF97]

Done with Telegram 1.3.8, we can close this

[Donokami]

Yep, really nice.
Thanks to GDPR <3

[pegelf]

Where do I find the option? The GDPR Bot still isn't active.

[Madh93]

@pegelf

UPDATE

[hay]

That's really good news. If this works as promised we can finally close this ticket.

[hay]

Can confirm the export function does indeed function as promised. Good work!

[Innomen]

I can't believe it actually happened.

I wonder if deleting a chat does any good in terms of privacy/security.

[zippl]

I am glad it is possible now and that we are getting more close to the fact that our data is owned by ourself!

It´s worth to point out that they were forced by european law (GDPR) and I doubt they would have implemented it by themself - taking into account this request has been in the pipe for many years!

[ArmeF97]

Thank god for GDPR

[themightyoarfish]

For anyone looking, this option is under Settings > Advanced > Export Telegram Data on macOS with Telegram Desktop 1.5

[chrisrapson]

Can anyone point me to instructions for Android? Is there equivalent functionality for mobile apps as for the desktop version? I'm looking to backup secret chats and transfer them to a new phone.

[john-preston]

@chrisrapson Data export is available only in Telegram Desktop, not in Android app.

[Jafarili]

is this feature removed from telegram desktop?! I can't find it

[maxoku]

@Jafarili
It's still there in: Settings > Advanced > Export Telegram Data
or for specific contact in three dot menu > Export Chat History.

[misterbykl]

Seems like this feature is gone for good. I can not find the button anymore. Is there another alternative?

[Madh93]

Seems like this feature is gone for good. I can not find the button anymore. Is there another alternative?

@misterbykl

[misterbykl]

@Madh93 There is no "Advanced" section on my MacOS Desktop App. And no "Export Telegram Data" in any Settings.

[john-preston]

@misterbykl This is another application, you can try Telegram Desktop from https://desktop.telegram.org

[misterbykl]

Thanks @john-preston I didn't know there was two separate desktop apps for Mac. Now I wonder why. Any idea?

[john-preston]

@misterbykl They just exist 🤷‍♂️

[TheTerrorByte]

There is no option on widows

[maxoku]

@TheTerrorByte
That doesn't look like Telegram Desktop, probably you have a different client.
Look here how it suppose to look like.

[john-preston]

@TheTerrorByte This is a very old version.

[TheTerrorByte]

thats what i downloaded from the website

[Aokromes]

idk what website you have used but, https://desktop.telegram.org/ gives you 2.1.6 on modern windows.