You Have the WhatsApp .zip. Here Is What to Do With It

A WhatsApp export ZIP holds the conversation as one text file, plus any voice messages, photos, videos or documents you chose to include. Open it with the Files app on iPhone, Google Drive on Android, or your computer's file manager. The guide below shows what each file is and what you can do with it.

What is inside the .zip

Extract the archive and you find, at minimum, one text file with the messages. If you chose "Include media" when exporting, the voice messages, photos, videos and documents sit beside it in the same folder.

Nothing inside the archive is encrypted. Any standard file manager opens it.

The folder looks different on each phone. The same four messages, exported from an iPhone and from an Android phone:

If you just want to see what is inside before extracting anything, the free WhatsApp export reader opens the .zip in your browser.

It counts the messages, months, people and voice messages, and gives the conversation back as text, a web page or a PDF. The file is never uploaded, and nothing is transcribed or summarised.

The text file: the backbone of your export

Its name and format

On iPhone the text file is always _chat.txt. On Android it carries the chat's name, such as WhatsApp Chat with Maria.txt.

Both are plain UTF-8 text with one message per line. Each line starts with the date and time, then the sender, then the message. iPhone puts the date in square brackets; Android follows it with a dash:

The date order follows the phone's language settings, so the same day can read 16/03/2024 or 3/16/24. Because the file is UTF-8, emoji and non-Latin scripts survive. If you see garbled characters, switch your text editor to UTF-8.

What the attachment markers mean

A photo, voice message or document is never inside the text file. The line records only the file's name with a marker, and the file itself sits in the same folder:

Captions typed under a photo or video are sometimes missing from the text file, depending on the WhatsApp version. If a message looks cut short, look for a media file sent at the same time.

System messages

Lines without a sender are system events: people joining or leaving a group, security code changes, missed calls. They help rebuild a timeline, but they are not messages anyone wrote.

For how the export differs across platforms and formats, see WhatsApp export formats explained.

.opus: the voice messages

Voice messages are the files most people overlook, yet they often carry the most important part of a chat.

What the file name tells you

Both phones export voice messages as .opus files, and both write the date into the name:

On Android, "PTT" stands for push-to-talk, WhatsApp's label for a recorded voice message, and the number after "WA" counts the files of that day. On iPhone, the first number is the message's position in the chat, and the time is included to the second.

An audio file someone forwarded into the chat, rather than recorded, can keep its own format, such as .m4a or .mp3.

Playback and transcription

Most media players open .opus files. If yours does not, VLC plays them without extra codecs.

Listening to dozens of voice messages one by one takes time. ThreadRecap can transcribe each voice message in your export through OpenAI's audio transcription service; clear recordings give better results. Each transcript sits at its message's date and sender, so it reads in context.

If the voice messages are the whole reason you exported this chat, WhatsApp audio to text covers that path on its own. When what was said needs to hold up in a dispute, voice messages as evidence shows what the written record looks like.

.jpg, .mp4, .pdf: media and documents

Photos and videos

On Android, photos are named IMG- and videos VID-, followed by the date. On iPhone, the name carries PHOTO or VIDEO with the date and time. That date is when the file was shared in the chat, not when the photo was taken. The difference matters if you use the export in a dispute.

Screenshots, photos taken in WhatsApp and images forwarded from other chats all get the same kind of name. The name alone cannot tell you whether an image was original or forwarded.

Documents and PDFs

Documents usually keep their original name, such as Lease agreement.pdf. iPhone adds its position number in front. If a name is unclear, find the matching attachment line in the text file.

What the export leaves out

Stickers, GIFs from WhatsApp's library and some link previews are not exported. A message deleted before the export leaves no trace in the text file.

Where to upload to get an analysis

Once you know what the files are, the next step is turning them into something you can read and act on.

Upload your .zip to ThreadRecap and the whole export is processed in one pass:

1. You export the chat from WhatsApp on your own device.
2. You upload the .zip directly from your device to your ThreadRecap account.
3. You check the preview and unlock the recap. ThreadRecap reads the text file, transcribes every voice message, and writes one structured recap with a chronological timeline and the transcripts.
4. In the follow-up chat on the same conversation, you ask for what you need: meeting minutes, action items, a decisions list, or how a conflict unfolded. Answers cite the original messages.

For exports containing 75 000 or more messages, the full analysis still runs in a single upload. ZIP files up to 2 Go are supported.

What stays on your device

ThreadRecap reads only the chat text and the audio. Everything else stays where it is:

If you include videos, your browser extracts their audio track and sends only that. Sensitive photos and confidential PDFs never leave your device.

Chat text and voice message audio are stored encrypted in your ThreadRecap account. You can delete them at any time from your dashboard.

For a broader look at the privacy questions, see whether it is safe to upload a WhatsApp chat to an AI tool.

Security notes: keep the original untouched

Before you do anything else with your export, make one copy and store it somewhere you will not change it by accident.

Why the original matters

The text file is plain text, and a text editor can overwrite it silently. If you keep an export for a legal, dispute or compliance matter, store the original .zip separately and avoid opening and re-saving its contents. File timestamps alone do not prove where a file came from or that it is authentic.

Practical steps:

• Copy the whole extracted folder to a separate location before opening any file.
• If the export is for legal purposes, ask a qualified professional whether to record a hash at the point of collection. A hash can later compare copies only when that recorded value has a documented basis; by itself, it does not authenticate the export.
• Store the original .zip somewhere with access logging if possible, such as a cloud drive with version history.

Passwords and sharing

The .zip has no password by default. Anyone who receives it can open and read it. To share the export with a lawyer, HR team or compliance officer, use an encrypted transfer instead of email.

Making sense of it all

A WhatsApp export is more structured than it looks. The text file holds the messages WhatsApp included, and separate files hold the voice messages and media. A structured analysis makes the conversation easier to review, but it does not verify the export's origin, completeness or legal status. Keep the original .zip beside any analysis if those questions matter.

The gap between "I have a .zip file" and "I have a clear record of what was decided, promised and said" is what ThreadRecap is built to close.

To see the analysis workflow in more detail before uploading, exporting a WhatsApp chat for analysis walks through the full process, from the Export chat menu to the finished recap.