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Importing your chats

Two message sources, two import methods — here’s how each one works and why it’s private.

The short version:

· iMessage lives in a database only your Mac can read — import it with the Mac app.

· WhatsApp chats are imported anywhere by exporting them from the app, then opening the export in Overlap.

· Either way, your raw chats stay on your device — anything processed in the cloud is anonymized first.

Importing iMessage — requires the Mac app

iMessage history lives in a local database (chat.db) that Apple keeps sandboxed to the Mac — no app on iPhone, including Overlap, is allowed to read it directly. That’s an iOS platform restriction, not a choice we made, so importing iMessage always starts on your Mac.

  1. 1Install Overlap for Mac. If you haven’t already, download it here.
  2. 2Grant Full Disk Access when prompted. macOS requires this permission for any app to read the Messages database — Overlap asks for it once, and you can revoke it anytime in System Settings.
  3. 3Overlap reads and analyzes your history on the spot. Reading and anonymization happen right there on your Mac — your raw message database never leaves it.
  4. 4Using Overlap on iPhone too? Once imported, your iMessage data can sync to your iPhone through your own iCloud account — Overlap’s servers are never in the loop. See Syncing between your Mac and iPhone for details.

Importing WhatsApp — from either device

WhatsApp lets you export a chat as a plain text file yourself, so there’s no platform restriction to work around — you can do this from your iPhone or from WhatsApp on Mac.

  1. 1Open WhatsApp and go to the chat you want to import.
  2. 2Open the chat’s settings and choose Export Chat.
  3. 3Choose Without Media. Overlap only reads the text of your conversation, so leaving media out keeps the export small and means you’re not carrying photos and videos along with it.
  4. 4Save or share the exported .txt file to your Mac or iPhone, then open it with Overlap. Overlap parses it on your device, the same as an iMessage import.

How this keeps your information private

Both import methods end the same way: your chats are read on your own device, and your raw message database and contact list are never uploaded or stored on our servers. Part of the analysis does run in the cloud — but anything sent there is anonymized on your device first, with names replaced by placeholders and emails, URLs, and phone numbers stripped out. Nothing about how you imported a chat changes that. Full details are in our Privacy Policy.