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.
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