ThreadRecap vs ChatGPT for WhatsApp Recaps
ChatGPT can summarize a pasted chat. ThreadRecap handles full exports, voice notes, long chats, and structured output. Here's when each makes sense.
You can paste a WhatsApp chat into ChatGPT and ask for a summary. It works. Sort of.
The question is whether "sort of" is good enough when you need reliable decisions, action items, and voice note transcription from a real conversation.
The copy-paste workflow
To summarize a WhatsApp chat with ChatGPT:
- Export the chat (you get a .zip file)
- Open the _chat.txt file inside the .zip
- Copy the text
- Paste it into ChatGPT
- Write a prompt asking for what you want
This works for short chats. For anything longer than a few hundred messages, you hit problems.
Where ChatGPT falls short
Context window limits
ChatGPT has a token limit. A 5,000-message WhatsApp thread will not fit in a single prompt. You either truncate it (losing context) or split it across multiple prompts (losing coherence).
ThreadRecap is a dedicated WhatsApp chat summarizer built for long chats. It processes the full export without truncation.
No voice note support
ChatGPT cannot listen to .opus files. If your chat has 30 voice notes with important decisions, ChatGPT ignores them entirely.
ThreadRecap transcribes every voice note and merges the transcripts into the conversation timeline before analysis.
No structured output
ChatGPT gives you a wall of text unless you write a detailed prompt specifying the exact format you want. And even then, the structure varies between runs.
ThreadRecap has goal-based output templates. Pick "Meeting Recap" and you get attendees, decisions, action items, and open questions. Every time.
Manual date/participant parsing
ChatGPT does not understand WhatsApp's _chat.txt format natively. It often confuses date formats, misattributes messages, and cannot handle system messages.