Frequently asked questions

No. TextExhibits reads the export file inside your browser and builds the PDF on your device. The tool page has no upload endpoint, and its Content-Security-Policy only allows network requests back to this site (used only to start checkout and confirm an unlock, never to send your file). Payment happens on Stripe’s own checkout page, in a separate tab. You can check this yourself in your browser’s developer tools (Network tab).

WhatsApp “Export chat” files from iPhone and Android (.txt, or the .zip with media), SMS Backup & Restore XML files from Android (SMS and MMS with photos), and iMazing CSV exports of iPhone messages. CSV files from Decipher TextMessage and iExplorer, or any CSV with date, sender and text columns, also work. Beta: tested on sample layouts, not yet on a real export. If anything looks wrong, email [email protected]. Telegram, Signal, Facebook Messenger and Instagram chats are not supported, and neither are app databases or encrypted backups (chat.db, msgstore.db.crypt…): the tool tells you if you pick one.

Admissibility is decided by the court under its own rules; no software can promise it. The PDF is designed to be easy to check: it lists the source file name, its SHA-256 fingerprint, message count, date range and participants, numbers every page, and leaves message text unchanged except for redactions you choose. Keep the original export file and the phone.

A PDF with the full cover page and the first 30 messages, with a “Free preview” watermark, so you can check the layout, dates and names before paying. Filters, redaction and photos work in the free preview too.

All messages, no watermark, Bates numbering, a hash certificate page and the option to combine several conversations. $9 covers one source file (re-download it, with any options, as often as you like for 24 hours); the $19 pass covers any number of files for 30 days.

No. Both options are one-time payments. The 30-day pass simply stops working after 30 days; it does not renew.

WhatsApp exports record the phone’s local time with no time zone, so the PDF shows the times exactly as written and states the time zone you declare. SMS Backup & Restore records exact instants, so the PDF converts them to the time zone you choose and prints the UTC offset on every message.

It is a 64-character value calculated from the exact bytes of your export file. Anyone can hash the same file again (for example with sha256sum, shasum -a 256 or certutil) and compare. Matching values show the file is the one used for the PDF; they do not prove who wrote the messages.

Yes. Phone numbers and email addresses can be replaced with [phone redacted] / [email redacted] before the PDF is created, so the original text is not in the file. Automatic redaction can miss unusual formats, so review every page.

Yes. Emoji are drawn with an embedded emoji font. JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF and HEIC photos (the iPhone format) from the export are shown inline, the right way up, in every current browser. HEIC photos are converted on your device, never uploaded. A damaged photo, or one too large for your device to open, is listed by name, size and fingerprint instead.

Yes. Besides Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew and Arabic, the PDF draws Chinese (simplified and traditional), Japanese and Korean, and Devanagari (Hindi, Marathi, Nepali), Bengali, Gurmukhi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Sinhala, Thai, Lao, Khmer, Burmese, Tibetan and Ethiopic (Amharic) with the Noto fonts, mixed freely with English, emoji and right-to-left text. Letters are combined and positioned by HarfBuzz, the shaping engine Chrome and Firefox use, and lines without spaces wrap between words. The fonts are only downloaded, from this site, when your chat contains those characters. A character no font covers, such as the newest emoji, is printed as its code (for example [U+1FAE9]), never dropped.

Tens of thousands of messages work on a computer; we test with 50,000. The PDF is built in the background with a progress bar. Very large exports with many photos need more memory, so a computer is better than a phone for those.

Yes, on current iPhone and Android browsers. For very large exports with lots of media a computer is faster.

Yes. If you were charged but didn’t get your PDF or pass, the result was corrupted or not as described, or you were charged twice, email [email protected] within 60 days. Consumers in the EU and UK can also cancel within 14 days of getting access. See the refund policy for details.

In most countries: the US, Canada, the UK, the EU, Australia, Japan, India and others, 82 in all (the countries where Stripe Managed Payments handles sales tax and VAT). The full list is at the end of our FAQ page. US territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam aren’t on it yet. If purchases aren’t available where you are, the tool tells you before checkout. Anyone can use the free preview.

No. TextExhibits is software. We do not give legal advice and using the site does not create an attorney–client relationship. Our guides link to the official rules so you can check them yourself.