How to Export Your iMessages

Follow these steps to get your messages ready for analysis

🚀 Quick Method (Recommended)

Open Terminal on your Mac and paste this command:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://lovereplay.app/export.sh)"

🔒 Privacy Note: This script runs entirely on YOUR computer. It exports only the conversation you choose. Nothing is sent to us until you upload the file yourself.

What the Script Does

  1. 1 Installs Homebrew (a safe, widely-used Mac package manager) if you don't have it
  2. 2 Installs imessage-exporter (an open-source tool for reading iMessages)
  3. 3 Helps you grant Full Disk Access (required by Apple to read your messages)
  4. 4 Shows your conversations and lets you pick ONE to export
  5. 5 Saves the export to your Desktop

About Full Disk Access

Apple protects your iMessages with a permission called "Full Disk Access." You'll need to grant this to Terminal (or your terminal app) so it can read your message database.

This is a one-time setup. The script will walk you through it.

⚠️ Important: After granting Full Disk Access, you MUST quit Terminal completely (Cmd+Q) and reopen it for the permission to take effect.

📺 Video Tutorial

Watch someone do it in 60 seconds:

Video coming soon!

Manual Method (Advanced)

If you prefer to install things yourself:

  1. Install Homebrew: /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
  2. Install imessage-exporter: brew install imessage-exporter
  3. Grant Full Disk Access to Terminal in System Settings
  4. Run: imessage-exporter -f txt -o ~/Desktop
I've Got My Export File →