whatsapp-chat-parser
v4.0.2
Published
A package to parse WhatsApp chats with Node.js or in the browser 💬
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WhatsApp Chat Parser
A package to parse WhatsApp chats with Node.js or in the browser 💬
Important notice
🚨 v4.0.0
brings some BREAKING CHANGES, check out the release page for more info.
Introduction
This library allows you to parse WhatsApp chat logs from text format into javascript objects, enabling you to more easily manipulate the data, create statistics, export it in different formats, etc.
You can test the package online with this example website:
whatsapp-chat-parser.netlify.app (Source code)
Install
$ npm install whatsapp-chat-parser
Usage
Node
import fs from 'node:fs';
import * as whatsapp from 'whatsapp-chat-parser';
const text = fs.readFileSync('path/to/_chat.txt', 'utf8');
const messages = whatsapp.parseString(text);
console.log(messages);
Browser
Add the script to your HTML file (usually just before the closing </body>
tag).
Then use it in your JavaScript code, the whatsappChatParser
variable will be globally available.
<script src="path/to/index.global.js"></script>
<script>
const messages = whatsappChatParser.parseString(
'06/03/2017, 00:45 - Sample User: This is a test message',
);
console.log(messages);
</script>
Or with type="module"
loading the ESM version:
<script type="module">
import * as whatsapp from 'path/to/index.js';
const messages = whatsapp.parseString(
'06/03/2017, 00:45 - Sample User: This is a test message',
);
console.log(messages);
</script>
You can also use the jsDelivr CDN.
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/whatsapp-chat-parser/dist/index.global.js"></script>
<!-- Or use a specific version -->
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/dist/index.global.js"></script>
Message structure
The messages
variable is an array of objects like this:
[
{
date: '2018-06-02T22:45:00.000Z', // Date object
author: 'Luke',
message: 'Hey how are you?',
},
{
date: '2018-06-02T23:48:00.000Z', // Date object
author: 'Joe',
message: 'All good, thanks',
},
];
When using the option parseAttachments
, the message may contain an additional property attachment
:
[
{
date: '2018-06-02T23:50:00.000Z', // Date object
author: 'Joe',
message: '<attached: 00000042-PHOTO-2020-06-07-15-13-20.jpg>',
attachment: {
fileName: '00000042-PHOTO-2020-06-07-15-13-20.jpg',
},
},
];
In the case of a system message, the author will be null
[
{
date: '2018-06-02T22:45:00.000Z', // Date object
author: null,
message: 'You created group "Party 🎉"',
},
];
API
parseString(string, [options]) → Array
string
Type: string
Raw string of the WhatsApp conversation
options
Type: object
A configuration object, more details below
Options
| Name | Type | Default | Description |
| :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- |
| daysFirst | Boolean
| undefined
| Specify if the dates in your log file start with a day (true
) or a month (false
). Manually specifying this may improve performance. By default the program will try to infer this information using 3 different methods (look at date.ts
for the implementation), if all fails it defaults to days first. |
| parseAttachments | Boolean
| false
| Specify if attachments should be parsed. If set to true
, messages with attachments will include an attachment
property with information about the attachment. |
A note about messages order
Sometimes, likely due to connection issues, WhatsApp exports contain messages that are not chronologically ordered.
This library won't change the order of the messages, but if your application expects a certain order make sure to sort the array of messages accordingly before use.
See #247 for more info.
How to export WhatsApp chats
Technologies used
- Language: TypeScript
- Testing: Vitest
- Code formatting: Prettier
- Linting: ESLint (with Airbnb rules)
Requirements
Node
Node.js >= 8.0.0
Browser
This package is written in TypeScript with target compilation to ES6.
It should work in all relevant browsers from ~2017 onwards.