How to backup iMessage on Mac (Easy Tutorial)

 How to backup all of your iMessages on Mac (easy tutorial)

Disclaimer: You need a Mac for this to work

Make sure terminal has full disk access. To do this, go to Settings>Privacy and Security>Full Disk Access and make sure "Terminal" is on.

1. Click on this link to open imessage-exporter on GitHub: https://github.com/ReagentX/imessage-exporter/releases

2. Scroll down until you find the assets. Click on the corresponding tar.gz asset based on your processor (aarch64 for apple silicon or x86_64 for intel) to download it. If you do not know your processor, click  on the top-left of the screen then click on "About This Mac". 

3. Navigate to the folder you saved the file in and double-click it. You should see a black file with the word "Exec" written on it in green, with the name "imessage-exporter". 

4. Double click the file. You should see a pop-up which says the file is not verified with Apple. Click "Done" to exit the pop-up. 

5. Now, we will have to allow the file. Open System Settings>Privacy & Security and scroll down until you find a message which says something like "imessage-exporter was blocked to protect your mac". Click on "Open Anyway" beside it. 

6. On the pop-up, click "Open Anyway"

7. A terminal window will pop up. Let it fully run

Leave the window open. Type Command+N to open a new window

Open the folder where the EXEC file was stored in finder. Type Option+Command+P. A small bar that looks like this should appear at the bottom of the screen. If it is not there, press the key shortcut again. This bar is called the path bar.

It should be laid out like "Macintosh HD > Users > "Username" >...

where "Username" is replaced by your username (In the picture, it is censored with a red box). 

Go back to the black terminal window. Type cd. After typing that, type the folder that appears right after the username in the path bar (case sensitive). Then type: /. And type the next item. Keep repeating this until all the folders after the username is finished. 

To make things simpler, here's an example:

The path bar looks like this. We are going to type cd in the terminal then all the folders after the username, separated with a /

So, based on the example path bar, it will look like: cd Stuff/More/Idk

Now click enter

Type: ./imessage-exporter -f html -m Name

Replace Name with your real name

Replace html with txt is you want a plain text. 

Add -p and type the path of the folder to save in a different folder from the home folder.