Earlier this year, my WhatsApp Chat Exporter hit a milestone I never could have imagined when I wrote the first line of code back in 2021: the project has officially crossed 1,000 GitHub stars, and in the time it took me to actually sit down and write this reflection, we’ve already surged past 1,300.

What started as a desperate “small script” has grown into a robust tool used by thousands to reclaim their digital history.

The Irony of the Beginning

In 2021, WhatsApp announced its controversial new privacy policy. Like many of you, I wanted out. I wanted to move my data and leave the platform behind. But to leave, I first had to get my data out in a format I actually owned.

I started with Android support because that’s what I used. Then, life happened, my now-ex used an iPhone, so I realized I needed to support iOS too. The funny thing is, a project I built to help me quit WhatsApp is the very thing that has kept me deeply embedded in the WhatsApp world for the last five years.

The “Hidden” Battle of Reverse Engineering

Reversing database formats is one of the hardest tasks in software. WhatsApp’s msgstore.db is a maze of proprietary blobs, hidden schemas, and encrypted layers. A single participant lookup, for example, can require chaining multiple JOINs across the message, chat, jid, and LID tables just to resolve one identifier. But that isn’t even the hardest part.

The real challenge is the chase. WhatsApp changes their schema constantly. They block emulators. They hide data in nested binary structures that don’t appear in any documentation. Keeping this project alive is a game of cat-and-mouse against a tech giant, and reaching 1,000 stars proves that this fight for transparency is worth it.

The 10-Month Revival

2026 has been one of the busiest and most challenging years of my life. There were moments when I genuinely wasn’t sure I could keep going, until @NotAFlightRisk kicked my ass to fix a vulnerability. That wake-up call got me back into PR reviews and the codebase.

I pushed through the next 10 months because this mission matters: Big Tech needs a counterbalance. You shouldn’t be locked into an ecosystem simply because that’s where your memories happen to live. You should own your data. Period.

I have a confession: I don’t own every device. I cannot possibly test every version of WhatsApp on every version of Android or iOS.

This project would have died years ago without the users who provided “blind” bug reports. Because your databases are confidential and contain your most private lives, you cannot simply send them to me for analysis. You had to become my eyes and ears, running hex dumps, describing crashes, and testing my experimental fixes. You aren’t just users; you are the decentralized QA team that keeps this project’s heart beating.

To My Contributors

Whether you sent a PR to fix a type hint, suggested the Telegram export feature, or simply fixed a typo in the README, thank you. You turned a solo mission into a community effort.

What’s Next?

That momentum is carrying us straight into our second major release of 2026 (0.14.0). This version is leaner, faster, and more independent than ever.

I don’t know how long I will be able to stand against the constant tide of WhatsApp updates, but as long as you keep using it and keep testing it, I will do my best to keep the doors open.

Here’s to owning our data in 2026 and beyond.

致她 (To the One Who Inspired the Bridge)

臨尾想特別提多一個人。雖然佢從來冇出現過係呢個 repo 入面，但其實呢個 project 都可以話係因為佢先會出現。儘管後尾我哋冇好似當初所諗咁，真係能夠「Rewrite The Stars」—— 原來時間真係唔等人，轉眼間大家都有各自嘅生活。不過就好似《Momentous》入面嗰句「Live the moment and love the memory」咁，既然留唔住嗰一刻，不如好好記住佢，將嗰份感覺擺落去做一啲實在嘅嘢。結果誤打誤撞，由一個好純粹嘅諗法，變成而家幫緊幾千人嘅工具。

呢個 project 雖然已經唔再只係當初嗰回事，唔再係一個細script仔，但每次見到有 iPhone 用家用佢嚟留低自己嘅回憶，我就覺得，呢條當初為咗一個人而搭嘅橋，依然發揮緊佢嘅作用。多謝你成為呢一切嘅起點同埋見證住呢段旅程，希望你喺往後嘅人生，一樣有咁多值得開心同有意義嘅事。

To everyone who made it to the end, I encourage you to check out Hong Kong Disneyland’s “Momentous” Nighttime Spectacular. Watching the video is great, but experiencing it live in the park is something you truly have to do for yourself.

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Beyond 1,000 Stars: A 5-Year Journey of Data Sovereignty Comment Section