How to Export LINE Chat History: Saving It as a .txt on iPhone, Android and PC, and How to Read the File
LINE lets you export each chat room as a text file (.txt). It's useful when you want to keep a treasured conversation, save an exchange as a record, or analyse reply speed and message counts, but the menu is hard to find, and many people wonder where it is, whether the other person will find out and whether photos are included. This article covers how to export chat history on iPhone, Android and PC, how to read the exported file, what is and isn't included, what to do when the export fails or the text is garbled, and what you can do with the exported file.
What LINE's chat history export can and can't do
LINE has a feature that exports the messages in one chat room as a text-only file. In the mobile app it's called "Export chat history" ("Send chat history" in some versions), and in the PC app it's "Save chat"; either way the result is a .txt (text file). You can open it in a notes app or a text editor on your computer, and each line shows the date, time, sender and message.
| What it can do | What it can't do |
|---|---|
| Keep the text messages of one chat room as a .txt | Export all your chats at once |
| Save it to email, a files app or the cloud | Keep the photos, videos or sticker images themselves |
| Search it on a computer or tally it with tools | Put the chat back into LINE from the exported file (restore) |
| Keep a copy of just the text before changing phones, as a precaution | Replace the transfer (backup) when changing phones |
The most common misunderstanding is the difference from a backup. Exporting chat history only extracts the text in a readable form; you can't load the exported file into LINE to restore the chat. To carry your chats over to a new phone, use "Back up chat history" in LINE's settings (iCloud on iPhone, Google Drive on Android). Conversely, backup files are encrypted, so you can't read or tally their contents; if your goal is analysis or record-keeping, use the export.
How to export chat history on iPhone and Android
The steps are almost the same on iPhone and Android. Menu names can differ slightly depending on the LINE version and app language, but the flow "chat room menu → Settings → Export chat history" stays the same.
- 1
Open the chat room you want to export
The steps are the same for a one-to-one chat with a friend or a group chat. Go into the chat room itself, not the chat list.
- 2
Tap "≡" (menu) at the top right
It's the three-line button at the top right of the screen. The chat room menu (the screen listing Albums, Notes, Notifications off and so on) opens.
- 3
Tap "Settings"
Choose the gear icon "Settings" in the menu. In some versions it's inside "Other".
- 4
Tap "Export chat history"
It's near the bottom of the chat room's settings screen. After a moment, a screen for choosing where to send the file (the share sheet) appears.
- 5
Choose where to save it
On iPhone, choose "Save to Files"; on Android, choose "Save to Drive" or a file manager, and a .txt is kept on the device or in the cloud. You can also send it to your own email address or to Keep.
For long chats, creating the file can take anywhere from a few seconds to a few tens of seconds. Switching screens partway through can make it fail, so wait until the share sheet appears.
How to "Save chat" in LINE for PC (Windows and Mac)
In LINE on a computer, open the chat room, click the menu at the top right (the "︙" or "≡" button) and choose "Save chat". You'll be asked for a location and file name; choose somewhere easy to find, such as the desktop, and the .txt is created on the spot. Because there's no share sheet as on a phone, this is quicker when you want to analyse the chat on a computer.
- The PC version can only save chats that are shown in LINE on the PC. Messages from before you logged in on the PC may be missing, so if you want to keep older chats, export from the mobile app.
- The saved file opens in Notepad on Windows or TextEdit on a Mac. In older PC versions and some environments, it may look garbled because of a character encoding mismatch (fixes are below).
- To use a file exported on your phone on a computer, the easiest ways are to email it to yourself, or save it to Google Drive or iCloud Drive and open it from the computer.
How to read the exported file
The exported file has the chat's name on the first line and the date and time it was saved on the second, followed by date lines and lines of "time, name, message". The time, name and message are normally separated by tabs. The examples below are from the English version of LINE; in other app languages the labels are in that language.
| Example line | Meaning |
|---|---|
| [LINE] Chat history with Saki | The chat's name (for groups, "Chat history in (group name)") |
| Saved on: 2026/10/15 22:30 | When it was exported |
| Thu, 10/15/2026 | The messages below are from this day |
| 21:58 Yuto Good job today! | Time, sender, message |
| 22:03 Saki [Sticker] | A record that a sticker was sent (the image isn't included) |
| 22:10 Yuto ☎ Call time 12:34 | A record of a call and how long it lasted |
| 22:31 Saki unsent a message. | Lines without a name are notices (the content of an unsent message isn't kept) |
Times go down to the minute, not the second. Depending on the device settings, times may be in 12-hour format such as "10:03 PM", or dates may appear in a different format, but the content is the same. Multi-line messages have the whole message wrapped in double quotes (") and continue onto the following lines.
- Included: text messages, emoji, the time and sender of each message, call records (call duration, missed calls), notices of unsent messages, and notices such as members joining or leaving
- Only a record is included: stickers, photos, videos, voice messages and files (only the type is included, as in "[Sticker]" or "[Photo]")
- Not included: the image or video data itself, when messages were read, the content of unsent messages, and old chats that are no longer on the device
What to do when you can't export, the text is garbled or old chats are missing
| Problem | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| You can't find "Export chat history" | You're looking at the chat list's settings / its location differs by version | Check "≡" → "Settings" (or "Other") inside the chat room |
| "Files" doesn't appear as a destination | It's hidden among the share sheet options | Scroll the share sheet sideways and add it via "More" |
| The file is garbled | Character encoding mismatch (UTF-8 vs Shift_JIS) | Open it in another app, or reopen it specifying the encoding |
| Old messages aren't included | The chat is no longer on the device (no backup when changing phones, etc.) | If the other person still has it, ask them to export it and send it to you |
| Photos aren't included | The export is a text-only feature | Save photos individually from Albums or the chat screen |
The exported file only contains chats that remain on that device. Periods you didn't carry over when changing phones, and messages from a chat room you deleted, aren't included. They often remain on the other person's device, so if you really need them, ask them to export with the same steps and send you the file.
What you can do with exported chat history
Once a chat is a text file, you can search the full text on a computer or print it to keep, and if you load it into a tool, you can look back on it in numbers. With the LINE Chat History Analyzer, just select the exported .txt to tally, in one go, how fast each of you replies (median, mean and the share within 5 minutes), each person's share of messages, the times of day and days of the week you talk most, who usually starts conversations, how many times words like "love you" and "thank you" were used, and total call time. It reads exports from the Japanese and English versions of LINE. The chat contents are processed only inside your browser and never sent to a server.
- Compare reply speeds → What's the average LINE reply time? Measuring it with the median
- See signs of interest in numbers → Can LINE reply speed tell you if someone likes you?
- Count "love you" messages or total call time → How to count how many times you said "I love you" on LINE
- Find out who talks most in a group → How to rank message counts in a LINE group
FAQ
- Where do I export LINE chat history from?
- In the mobile app, open the chat room you want to export and tap "≡" at the top right → "Settings" → "Export chat history" (in some versions it's inside "Other"). In the PC app, choose "Save chat" from the menu at the top right of the chat room. Both save it as a text file (.txt).
- Is the other person notified when I export chat history?
- No. Exporting or saving chat history happens on your own device; the other person doesn't receive a notification and nothing appears in the chat.
- Are photos and stickers included in the exported chat history?
- The images themselves aren't. Only a text record that something was sent is included, such as "[Photo]" or "[Sticker]". To keep photos, save them individually from the chat screen or Albums.
- Can I restore chats from the exported file?
- No. Exporting chat history is a feature for extracting the text; you can't load it into LINE to restore the chat. To carry chats over to a new phone, use "Back up chat history" in LINE's settings.
- My exported file is garbled
- It's usually caused by a character encoding mismatch. Open it in a different text editor, or use the editor's "open with encoding" option and choose UTF-8 or Shift_JIS. The LINE Chat History Analyzer automatically re-reads the file as Shift_JIS when it detects garbling.
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