Occasionally, you may need to export your Microsoft Teams chat messages. This is not a simple and straightforward process but, with a bit of patience, you’ll be able to export your chat history.
This guide is divided into two parts. In the first part, we’ll show you three quick workarounds that you can use to get the job done. The second part is dedicated to the official method, namely the Microsoft Teams Export Page.
How to Export Your Microsoft Teams Chat History
Copy the Messages
If your chat history is not that long, you can simply copy the conversation and paste it into a text editor such as WordPad, Notepad, or Word. This workaround is perfect if you need to quickly export a few chat messages.
However, if you want to export a long chat history with hundreds of messages, you need to use a more efficient method.
Take Screenshots
Another workaround is to “export” the conversation messages as screenshots. This method doesn’t take as much time as the first one. Moreover, you can capture multiple messages on the same screenshot. Save the screenshots as .PNG or .JPG files and you’re done.
Use the GoFullPage Extension
There’s a browser extension that you can use to take a screenshot of your entire conversation. Here’s what you need to do if you want to use this method:
- Go to https://teams.microsoft.com/ and use the web version of Teams.
- Install the GoFullPage browser extension.
You can then launch the extension and capture your chat history.
Save as PDF
Alternatively, you can open Teams in your browser and select the conversation you’re interested in. Right-click on the conversation you just selected, and click on Print → Print as PDF.
Save the file on your computer. The PDF document you just created also includes all the images from that conversation. However, you can’t use this method to copy the entire conversation.
Share to Outlook
You also have the option to share a single chat to Outlook. To do that, select the chat you want to export, click on More options (the three dots), and then Share to Outlook.
Use the Export Page
Microsoft Teams has a dedicated Export Page that you can use to export chat messages and media files. The only downside to this method is that you need to wait a few minutes until you can download your messages and media files.
- Log in to the Export page (use your Microsoft Account).
- Select Chat history if you want to export only your chat messages.
- Hit the Submit request button. Click on Continue when prompted.
- Check the status of the export page under Available Exports (top corner).
- A download link will appear on the screen when your messages and files are ready to go.
- Click the Download button to download and export your Teams chat history on your computer.
And this is how you can export your Microsoft chat history.
mike butler says
Many large companies have retention policies so that things are not kept for extended periods for the sake of litigation and liability.
Technical people however need expertise and details retained for as long as some equipment is still used, and as long as certain software applications are needed.
Technical discussions often yield long term knowledge that extends beyond employment periods.
We NEED to retain conversations and context over decades.
Sometimes dealing with a problem that rarely occurs one may be fortunate to recall a similar instance and even be fortunate enough to recall when or with whom a conversation occurred and NEEDS a way to review those conversations.
Many are retiring with many decades of experience and equipment and software outlives people.
We NEED a way to export an entire string of conversations with SMEs and retain them pretty much forever, liability be damned!
IronGumby says
That GoFullPage extension only captures the full length of the _Contacts_ column, not the Chat you’re in :/
Stewart says
“There is a reason why corporations put in retention policies to delete all chats after a certain amount of time. Allowing easy export would compromise all that.”
And what is that reason?
“Blaming Microsoft for a feature no company would want just seems silly.”
The “feature” being … censorship of what we try to copy and paste? I think it’s perfectly reasonable to blame Microsoft for this.
“The copy/paste option posted by Natalee does not work for the entire conversation is hundreds of messages long and when the conversation spans months/ years.”
You’ve taken the words out of my mouth there. What’s worse is that it _silently_ doesn’t copy everything. A few times I’ve tried copying and pasting a Teams conversation, only to find subsequently that it hasn’t copied everything. I try scrolling to the top, hoping this will load and therefore copy the entire conversation. But no – I find that Teams has decided to discard everything except the beginning of the conversation.
John O. says
It’s July 2022, and we have Teams Enterprise edition (or whatever commercial customers pay for). It’s not the most horrendous product, but it’s certainly a time waster. Even Lotus Notes was better. I have a long chat history with a couple of people, and I’m looking for information from a couple months ago or longer, a text search would be perfect for this.
“You can’t save an entire chat in Teams yet, but here a couple of workarounds.
Select the chat to capture and do one of the following:
Select the text in the message and press Ctrl+C. Paste it into Notepad or a Word document. Since you can’t always select all the text, you may need to do several selects to get what you want.
Using Teams for the Web, open the chat and right-click the message. Choose Print in the browser or press Ctrl+P and print it to a PDF. You can only print one page of a message at a time.
For info on creating a favorite of a message, see Save a message.”
USELESS
Robin says
You do realize this is by design right? Corporations do not want you exporting mass amounts of chats. There is a reason why corporations put in retention policies to delete all chats after a certain amount of time. Allowing easy export would compromise all that.
If you want a copy of your chats and your company allows it just ask them for an export. They have the ability to easily do it if they allow.
Blaming Microsoft for a feature no company would want just seems silly.
Stefanie says
It only helped me to realize that I’m not the only one that’s frustrated with the inability to save a TEAMS chat conversation. I cannot believe that something as basic as this is not available in a Microsoft product.
L Woods says
The copy/paste option posted by Natalee does not work for the entire conversation is hundreds of messages long and when the conversation spans months/ years. There is no way to do this for a professional account when you are part of an organization as the export option only works for personal accounts.
**This needs immediate attention as our organization will be deleting all of our data within the next couple of weeks that is more than one month old.**
Charles Gilley says
Seriously? Cut/paste a short conversation? A screen capture? Do you not even understand how people use chat clients? Why does an application CREATE more work than it solves?
I am seriously amazed at how completely f’ing brain dead Microsoft can be at times. What prevents them from letting me right mouse click on a conversation and select “Save as…”? Too hard? How about let me log selected chats? Too hard?
ffs Microsoft. You should just be embarrassed.
Marc Messina says
It’s been a year since the article was posted and all of these negative comments… and no update? Typical.
Natalee says
Hello all! Solved the copying paste of daily chats- select converation and click anywhere in the background of the chat and hold Crtl+A and Ctrl+C at the same time. Then go to a word document and paste (text only) and tada this should do the trick. Shortcuts to the rescue when Microsoft forgets what century we are in lol.
Bruce Weston says
how stupid Microsoft that you can’t just export full conversations in the desktop app including images.
this is 2021.. you would think they had figured out how to make helpful software by now.
Thelma Lanteigne says
Need a way to export a whole conversation from start to finish with an individual. I have hundreds of “chats” in a long thread conversation with one person who is no longer employed here. I want to export the whole conversation–I would be happy with a text file–so that I have ready access to the nuggets of information when I need them. I liked how Skype used too save each chat as a separate conversation and send it to your email. Trying the export, but it did not allow me to log in with my company account. I had to request a temporary password. So we’ll see how that works. Even the export doesn’t allow you to select a contact to export a conversation with. So this is going to download two years worth of conversation with ALL of my colleagues. Hmm. We’ll have to see what that looks like. shouldn’t be this hard. This is Microsoft after all.
Corey says
Why is this article only based on the web version? This would of been more helpful if its was based on the desk top application.
Ajoy Bhatia says
None of the last 3 options work for a professional account. The first 2 – copy=paste or take screenshots – are worthless. Waste of time.
None says
Teams is slowly going the Lotus way… chosen and paid by top brass, who barely use it themselves, suffered by the rest of the staff.
Christenson says
This does not work for Teams when on a corporate account..
I should be able to copy and paste a section or all of a given chat into, for example, outlook, and get something that looks close. It *is* the third decade of the 21st century.
L says
Agree with Robert D Korn “None of these suggestions are useful of you have a work account and the conversation is more than a page long”…. very disappointing and frustrating :(
Ken Tope says
This is a horrible tool…so glad my company switched to a tool that doesn’t allow easily pulling text data out of the app. The selctive high light – doesn’t work – all I can do is Ctrl-A then CTRL V into an email. If there is an image / or too much text – it hangs outlook.
Bravo Microsoft.
Robert D Korn says
None of these suggestions are useful if you have a work account and the conversation is more than a page long.
Robert D Korn says
None of these suggestions are useful of you have a work account and the conversation is more than a page long.
Ulli says
PLEASE add a feature where we can copy and paste more than just a single message!!!!
Robert Stone says
How do you import WhatsApp chats into Microsoft Teams?
The chat from WhatsApp was exported and saved as an txt file
Jeffrey Brown says
Nope. This is not what I asked. I’m forced to manually copy snippets from a teams chat and paste them into notepad so I can then copy all the text into my salesforce tickets. Why can’t we just do a save as a word file and have it dump all the text into a word document? I’m sure there’s a reason why it wouldn’t work, but I’d like to know what that reason is.
Wendie Farrah-Rendall says
Sorry no, a really long message with pictures and I’ve had to screen shot each section one at a time, why can’t we just copy all?
Vincent Rosier says
The Export feature seems to accept only personal account, no professional account
Lisette Saravia says
Wow! This was a hot mess. Nothing worked. Not helpful at all.
thr27 says
Caputure Extension and Export to PDF worked for me … Thanks
MortenL says
The live.com link does not work with office 365 accounts..
jeff says
Did this help?
Not in the slightest, frankly.
It’s the third decade of the twenty-first century – but Microsoft can’t manage cut and paste. Sheesh!
Dale Pratt says
At least in the web version of Teams I can Ctrl+A and Ctrl+C to get the whole conversation and paste where I want it (OneNote) unlike in actual Teams.
Yahia Jad says
Share to outlook works fine but the problem is that timestamps of the conversation disappears. it shows the time stamp as “Yahia jad 1 day ago “. Both incorrect and misleading. it needs to export the conversation with the real timestamp of the message “11-04-2021 10:11 am”
SixSigmaGuy says
So, after going through the whole process, I ended up with 3 json files. What am I supposed to do with them?
Kamil says
I see “share to outlook” just for single chat message and single message is transferred.
Kamil says
Longing to export page system sais that this user (email) does not exist > it is the same email I am logged in with now.
Also I don’t have the option “share to outlook”
How to fix it?
Deonne says
No, same as above, receive a file .tar. does not make sense.
Mitch Bartlett says
You can open them with 7zip. https://www.7-zip.org/
Stacy says
I was able to export the data, but the file has the extension “.tar” and I don’t know what to open it with.
Brian Murphy says
All I got in the download is a zip containing three very small .json files. No chat history. Bummer.
Dorota says
Same as above – doesn’t recognise email.
I am really disgusted that such a simple function like export chat is so non-accessible. Microsoft get your act together!
Tony Heaton says
Trying to use the export feature fails miserably as it tells me that it doesnt recognise my email address and password even though I have logged into teams correctly.
Tony Heaton says
Does not recognise email address / password even though I just used it to log into teams