Re: Erracitic results, export chats from Whatsapp to windows 11.

Herbert Kleebauer wrote:
>>> A few days ago I exported a >500 MByte chat. I saved it locally on the
>>> phone and then transferred the zip file to the PC with ftp (using
>>> "primitive ftpd" on the phone and "Windows Explorer" on the PC) . I
> 
>> What format has the chat?
> 
> The chat is exported as a zip file. It contains the chat as .txt
> file (utf-8 including smileys.) and all pictures, videos, pdfs etc.
> in the original format.

To add value to what Herbert kindly offered, I ran research for the team.

While I shun highly marketed Android apps such as WhatsApp is, I use it for
my grandkids as it helps to get videos of the grandkids and to talk to
relatives in Germany so even I use this highly marketing VOIP tool.

I don't back up anything but the media, and since Android is just a drive
letter on Windows, it's trivial to easily backup Android files to the PC.'

But the messages inside of WhatsApp are apparently different from the media
in terms of how they're stored (encrypted, apparently). So you need a key.

So, to help the team, as always, I looked up just now how to back up the
text messages from unrooted Android WhatsApp to the Windows PC filesystem.

In my humble opinion, WhatsApp tries too hard to get us to use Google
Drive, when something like our personal chats belong on our network.

But I found these two Windows programs which purport to decrypt
and save the Android WhatsApp messages to your Windows PC.

This is, what I think Herbert was suggesting worked for a single chat:
1. Open the WhatsApp chat you want to save.
2. Tap the three dots -> More -> Export chat.
3. Choose "Include media".
4. WhatsApp will generate a ZIP file.
   ChatName.txt
    Media/
     IMG-20240101-WA0001.jpg
     IMG-20240101-WA0002.jpg
     ... 
5. Choose 
   a. "Save to Files", 
   b. "Share via Bluetooth", 
   c. "Send to your PC via LAN app", or 
   d. "Send via USB MTP".

Always eschewing cloud-services marketing gimmicks, we can 
A. Save to device storage
   Then copy via USB or by mounting the phone as a drive letter on Windows
B. Share to a LAN file-sharing app 
   (e.g., KDE Connect or LocalSend, both of which are FOSS)
C. Send via Bluetooth 
   (slow but works)

Apparently there are FOSS whatsapp viewers/backups for Windows
which will decrypt and save every chat, two of which I installed.

Windows WhatsApp Viewer 
 <https://xdaforums.com/t/tool-whatsapp-key-db-extractor-crypt6-12-non-root-updated-october-2016.2770982/>
 <https://github.com/andreas-mausch/whatsapp-viewer>
 <https://andreas-mausch.de/whatsapp-viewer/>
 <https://github.com/andreas-mausch/whatsapp-viewer/releases/tag/v1.15>
 <https://github.com/andreas-mausch/whatsapp-viewer/releases/download/v1.15/WhatsApp.Viewer.zip>
D:\software\telecom\whatsapp\whatsappviewer\WhatsApp.Viewer.zip
 Name: WhatsApp.Viewer.zip
 Size: 1425323 bytes (1391 KiB)
 SHA256: DC83B74719C82AB9AB2FEC9E62768ABB530791EB49BF69F444DFFB8BDD543D07
Unzip to a single file:
C:\app\telecom\whatsapp\WhatsApp.Viewer\WhatsApp Viewer.exe
 Name: WhatsApp Viewer.exe
 Size: 2445312 bytes (2388 KiB)
 SHA256: 31E6C5CDA73CA16439E12F5A8AD642796DCA00DCEF4871EB74DB5C6171C4408F
Create a shortcut in your taskbar pullout cascade menu folder:
C:\menu\telecom\whatsapp\WhatsApp.Viewer\WhatsAppViewer.lnk
 Target: C:\app\telecom\whatsapp\WhatsApp.Viewer\WhatsApp Viewer.exe
How to use 
 a. Get your key and database file from the phone (see XDA thread above).
 b. Open WhatsApp Viewer
 c. File -> Open -> Select file
 d. Select msgstore.db in the folder "extracted"
 e. Leave account name empty
 f. Optional: Import contact names from the wa.db file
 g. Click on a chat to show the messages.

WhatsApp Key/DB Extractor
Allows WhatsApp users to extract their cipher key and databases on
non-rooted Android devices. Requires Java on Windows. And adb.
<https://github.com/EliteAndroidApps/WhatsApp-Key-DB-Extractor>
<https://github.com/EliteAndroidApps/WhatsApp-Key-DB-Extractor/archive/refs/heads/master.zip>
Name: WhatsApp-Key-DB-Extractor-master.zip
Size: 7462622 bytes (7287 KiB)
SHA256: BEB32B7494D9BE95AF90219E1CA73209808C55AD4FA6AAEFF539B8FB1C4F4FE2
Extract to: 
 a. Batch script: WhatsAppKeyDBExtract.bat
 b. PowerShell script: WhatsAppKeyDBExtract.ps1
 c. Shell script: WhatsAppKeyDBExtract.sh

Interestingly, a "grep.exe" came with this package, which, in and of
itself, is a useful tool to put in the path for us old Unix folks.
 C:\app\telecom\whatsapp\dbextract\
    AdbWinApi.dll
    AdbWinUsbApi.dll
    abe.jar
    adb.exe
    curl.exe
    grep.exe
    libiconv2.dll
    libintl3.dll
    pcre3.dll
    regex2.dll
    tar.exe

I haven't tested it, but if anyone tests these out, it will be useful to
all for you to write it up so that we can all benefit from your effort.
-- 
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