Last updated: July 2026 · Message Exporter for macOS
Ask us anything: [email protected] — or use the contact form. We answer within one business day (Mon–Fri, U.S. Pacific Time).
Looking for step-by-step instructions instead? The user guide covers every screen in the app.
None of this is required, but it usually saves a round trip:
Please don't attach a message transcript or a conversation screenshot with real content in it. Message Exporter works entirely on your Mac and we never receive your messages — we'd rather keep it that way. A description, or a screenshot with the content covered, is enough.
Message Exporter is sandboxed and can only read the folder you point it at. Quit and relaunch, and when the open panel appears choose ~/Library/Messages — press ⌘⇧Gin the panel and paste that path if you can't see the Library folder. You do not need to grant Full Disk Access.
That's Contacts access being off — macOS stores threads against numbers, not names. Allow Message Exporter in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Contacts and relaunch. The app works fine without it; you'll just see numbers.
Open the upgrade sheet and choose Restore Purchases. Make sure you're signed in to the same Apple Account you purchased with, and to the same Message Exporter account. If it still doesn't unlock, email us the Apple receipt and we'll sort it out.
Pro is billed by Apple, so cancelling happens there: System Settings → Apple Account → Subscriptions → Message Exporter → Cancel Subscription. You keep Pro features until the end of the period you already paid for. Refunds are issued by Apple under its own policy, at reportaproblem.apple.com.
Email [email protected] from the address on the account with the subject “Delete Message Exporter account”, and we delete the account record and its subscription status within 30 days.
Two things it does not do. It does not cancel your subscription — cancel that with Apple separately, or you will keep being billed. And it does not touch anything on your Mac: your messages and any files you exported are yours and were never ours to delete.
Manage Media can only collect attachments that exist on this Mac. If an attachment was never downloaded — common in threads your Mac synced only partially — open the conversation in Messages, let it download, and scan again. Also check the time-range filter: on the free plan media is limited to the last 3 days.
It must be a backup stored on this Mac (Finder → your iPhone → Back up now), not an iCloud backup. Select the backup folder itself — the one named with a long identifier inside ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/ — and enter the password you set when you enabled Encrypt local backup. Without that password an encrypted backup cannot be opened by anyone, including us.
Browsing, searching, and reading are unlimited. Exporting is limited to the last 3 days, in plain text, plus the shared photos, videos, PDFs and files from those same 3 days. Pro unlocks every time range, PDF/HTML/CSV/Excel, and full attachment export. See the plan comparison.
Open the App Store, click Updates, and press ⌘R to force a refresh — the store caches its update list for a while after a release. An Openbutton next to the app in search results doesn't mean you're up to date; only the Updates tab does.
Nowhere. Reading, previewing, and exporting all happen on your Mac; there is no upload endpoint in the app. The only thing our servers hold is your account and whether it has an active subscription. See the Privacy Policy.
Tell us the steps that trigger it, what you expected, and what happened, plus your macOS and app version. If it involves a specific conversation, a description of it (group or one-to-one, roughly how many messages, whether it has attachments) helps more than the transcript itself, which we don't want.
Privacy Policy · Terms of Use. Message Exporter is published by Soft Flourish, operated by Fenul LLC, California, USA.