Export Conversation from Facebook

There was an interesting question from Jerra M in the comments section of “Export Friends List from Facebook” article which made me write this post.

We all love to save the conversations that we had with our friends and family from Facebook. One way of doing this is using the Facebook Archival Option that we have covered already in the other article. The next way is using Developer Tools, so let us quickly see how to Export Conversation from Facebook using Open Graph Explorer.

I just wanted to give a detailed explanation with steps, on how to do it so that it could help Jerra M and others who are looking out for this information.

Question from Jerra M: Do you know whether we could use this second option to also export just our private messages?

Answer from Artic Post: Yes, this could be done but you won’t be able to export your private messages at one go as we did it in case of Exporting Friends List. We will be getting the list of ids for all the conversations that you have and you have to click through each of them to get the detailed conversation history of that private message. Let me show you how to do that.

Export Conversation from Facebook using Graph Explorer

Login into your Facebook account and navigate to https://developers.facebook.com/tools/.
Click on the Graph Explorer icon.

By default you should see your id and name (refer Export Friends List from Facebook article for screenshot).
Click on the Get Access Token button.
Click on the Extended Permissions Tab, select the read_mailbox check box and click Get Access Token button.

Graph Explorer API will request for permission to access your profile. Click Okay.
In the text box beside the GET button, remove the below query

me?fields=id,name

and paste the below query. Click Submit button.

me/inbox?fields=id,from,message,subject

You should now see the data populated as shown below,

Each id that is displayed above, is a conversation history that you had with each individual.
Click on the each individual id to Export Conversation from Facebook.

Hope this was useful to Jerra M, I thank him for his wonderful question that provided me an opportunity to craft an article. If you think this was useful, kindly request you to share it.

10 Comments

James
Dec 20, 2014 @ 19:37

Hi,
Thank you very much for your great tutorial, I have a question, I would like to read all of the conversations that I had with only one friend of mine.
is that possible to extract it using your method?
- James
  Dec 20, 2014 @ 19:41
  
  btw, there are over 20,000 chat history and I like to export all of it. please advice.
  I used your method but i can’t see my friend user ID in the above list…
Noel Cassar
May 24, 2014 @ 18:13

Hi Sri

One of my latest problems was the same as Jerra’s.

I made an extensive search on the internet, but nothing worked out. Fortunately, I came across your site and I am pleased to inform you that your guidance was the only solution of exporting messages received on my Facebook page. I thank you and appreciate your efforts in producing the query and you simple way of explained it. My profession is not IT, but the fact that I could easily follow your steps and achieve the required result should be applauded.

I am encountering again Jerra’s problem since I need to download of long conversation. The “next/previous” buttons work fine but it is practically impossible to use these steps so that I would be able to copy & paste all the messages within a lengthy conversation.

It would be highly appreciated if you could guide me in obtaining a downloadable file, which I would be able to import to Excel and then I would be able to parse it and sort it according to my needs.

I thank you in advance and look forward in receiving a solution :-).

My best regards
Noel
- Sri Varshan R Y
  May 24, 2014 @ 19:33
  
  Hello Noel,
  
  Thanks for your feedback, glad to hear that the steps were easy to follow :-). I still haven’t looked into the option of downloading the entire conversation at one go. Let me try to find a solution and if I find one, will post it over here. Thanks for stopping by and providing your valuable comments. Stay tuned to ArticPost. Have a wonderful day.
  - Jerra M.
    May 24, 2014 @ 19:37
    
    Sri, just wanted to let you know that we’re here to give you our moral support. Your work and know-how are appreciated. If ever you create a new post that solves Noel’s and my problem, would you kindly leave a reply on this page again, so that I’ll get email notification? Thank you.
    - Sri Varshan R Y
      May 24, 2014 @ 19:45
      
      Sure Jerra, will definitely drop a note on this page when I find a solution. Thanks a ton for your support, appreciate it a lot have a wonderful weekend.
  - Noel Cassar
    May 24, 2014 @ 21:32
    
    Hi Sri
    
    Thanks for your immediate follow up.
    
    regards
    Noel
Jerra M.
May 12, 2014 @ 10:22

Hi, Sri.

I’ve subscribed to comments for this post of yours and the other one. If you happen to find a solution, please just write another comment on either place and I’ll get email notification. I’m not a techie person, but I’m guessing that with FB Developers, Facebook data can be easily taken out of the FB walled garden. Perhaps you’ve heard of IFTTT. With just a few clicks of my mouse, I can create have all new status updates I’ve created be added to a Google Spreadsheet. I think that shows that almost anything can be done with our FB data, with the right know-how
Jerra M.
May 09, 2014 @ 02:36

Hi, Sri. Thank you for creating this post as a result of my question. I appreciate your service so much. What I love about your posts is that you make technical stuff like this very easy to follow, with your screenshots and step-by-step instructions.
I reached the last instruction of yours: “Click on the each individual id to Export Conversation from Facebook.” I clicked an ID, and now I see a private-message/chat conversation I’ve had with a friend, but it’s in weird code. Is there a way to transform this into a Google Spreadsheet?

Also, I noted you said that this post is for exporting conversations one by one. I’m new to FB and so have only a few conversations. But in the future, I may have many more conversations. Is there a way to export many at one time?

Thank you again Sri for creating this helpful and newbie-friendly post.
- Sri Varshan R Y
  May 12, 2014 @ 08:34
  
  Hello Jerra,
  
  Glad to hear that my posts are easy to follow, that’s a huge reward for me :-). To answer your question, as of now i don’t have a way to help you get all the Facebook conversations at one go. Stay tuned to Artic Post by subscribing to the newsletter, will post it in here if i find a solution, or you can also let me know if you have found one, i am still learning :-). As for making the exported data more readable i am planning to create an utility that could convert the exported data into a more meaningful representation. Keep visiting Artic Post and share it with your circle, have a wonderful week ahead.