Guides · Updated November 2026

By Nicolas Zawadzki, who makes Message Mammoth. The free methods below don't need it.

How to export iMessages to PDF on a Mac

There are two ways, and one of them is free. First check that your Mac holds the messages you need.

Check what your Mac holds

Your Mac may not hold every message. With Messages in iCloud, Apple says messages are stored in the cloud, with only the most recently accessed ones kept on your device.

1. Open Messages on your Mac and select the conversation.
2. Scroll up to the earliest message you need.
3. If it isn't there, or photos are missing, use your iPhone as the source instead. See how to export text messages from your iPhone.

Print from Messages (free)

1. Select the conversation and scroll up to the first message you want. Messages may print only what it has loaded.
2. Choose File, then Print.
3. Open the PDF menu at the bottom of the print dialog and choose Save as PDF.

What goes wrong: older messages can be left out if you didn't scroll far enough, and nothing tells you. Times appear only now and then, and bubbles can split across pages. There are no message numbers or counts.

Export a dated, numbered PDF

An exporter reads the Messages database rather than what's on screen, so it gets every message on the Mac in the range you choose. With Message Mammoth:

1. Open the app and press Start a new pull for this Mac. Because macOS protects the Messages folder, first switch on Full Disk Access for Message Mammoth in System Settings, Privacy & Security. It only needs to be on while the app copies your messages.
2. Select a person or a conversation. Narrow it by dates, sent or received, or a word.
3. Review the messages. The preview shows what your selection contains.
4. Choose an output style, such as Lawyer or court, and export.

If you'd rather not grant Full Disk Access: in Finder, choose Go, then Go to Folder, and enter ~/Library/Messages. Copy chat.db, chat.db-shm and chat.db-wal together to another folder and open that copy in the app. Without chat.db-wal the newest messages can be missing. A copy made this way has no photos.

Each message gets a number, its date and time with the UTC offset, and the sender's name and number. Photos are placed in the PDF, and reactions, replies and edits are written out. SMS and iMessage conversations are both included, labelled by service. The cover page lists the filters you used and how many messages were included and excluded.

You also get a CSV spreadsheet of the same messages, and a SHA-256 manifest file listing each file's hash. Plain text is optional.

It's free to preview every message and to try exports of up to 20 messages in total, calls and group events included. Unlimited exports are $29.99 once.

Download free for Mac

Which one to use