📦 chatpack

Compress chat exports from Telegram, WhatsApp, and Instagram into token-efficient formats for LLMs.

Why?

LLM context windows are expensive. A typical Telegram export is 80% metadata noise. chatpack strips it down to what matters: sender and content.

Before: 34,478 tokens (raw JSON)
After:  26,169 tokens (chatpack CSV)
        ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
        24% reduction ✨

Features

• 🚀 Fast — 20K+ messages/sec
• 📱 Multi-platform — Telegram, WhatsApp, Instagram
• 🔀 Smart merge — Consecutive messages from same sender → one entry
• 🎯 Filters — By date, by sender
• 📄 Formats — CSV, JSON, JSONL

Installation

Pre-built binaries (recommended)

Download the latest release for your platform:

Platform	Download
Windows	chatpack-windows-x64.exe
macOS (Intel)	chatpack-macos-x64
macOS (Apple Silicon)	chatpack-macos-arm64
Linux	chatpack-linux-x64

macOS/Linux: After downloading, make it executable:

chmod +x chatpack-*

./chatpack-macos-arm64 tg chat.json

Via Cargo

cargo install chatpack

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/berektassuly/chatpack

cd chatpack

cargo build --release

How to Export Your Chats

📱 Telegram (Desktop)

1. Open Telegram Desktop (not mobile!)
2. Go to Settings → Advanced → Export Telegram data
3. Select the chat you want to export
4. Important settings:
   • ✅ Format: JSON
   • ❌ Uncheck: Photos, Videos, Voice messages (saves space)
   • ✅ Check: Text messages
5. Click Export → Wait → Get result.json

chatpack tg result.json

💬 WhatsApp (Mobile)

iPhone:

1. Open chat → Tap contact name at top
2. Scroll down → Export Chat
3. Choose Without Media
4. Send to yourself (email, AirDrop, Files)

Android:

1. Open chat → Tap ⋮ (three dots)
2. More → Export chat
3. Choose Without media
4. Save/send the .txt file

chatpack wa "WhatsApp Chat with Mom.txt"

📸 Instagram (Web)

1. Go to instagram.com → Log in
2. Settings → Your activity → Download your information
3. Request a download → Select Some of your information
4. ✅ Check only Messages
5. Format: JSON, Date range: All time
6. Click Submit request → Wait for email (can take hours/days)
7. Download ZIP → Extract → Find messages/inbox/username/message_1.json

chatpack ig message_1.json

⚠️ Instagram exports have broken encoding (Mojibake). chatpack fixes it automatically!

---

Usage

Basic

# Telegram JSON export

chatpack tg result.json


# WhatsApp TXT export  

chatpack wa chat.txt


# Instagram JSON export

chatpack ig message_1.json

Output Formats

# CSV (default) — best for token efficiency

chatpack tg chat.json -f csv


# JSON — structured array

chatpack tg chat.json -f json


# JSONL — one JSON per line, streaming-friendly

chatpack tg chat.json -f jsonl

Filters

# Messages after date

chatpack tg chat.json --after 2024-01-01


# Messages before date

chatpack tg chat.json --before 2024-06-01


# Messages from specific user

chatpack tg chat.json --from "Alice"


# Combine filters

chatpack tg chat.json --after 2024-01-01 --from "Bob"

Metadata Options

# Include timestamps

chatpack tg chat.json -t


# Include message IDs

chatpack tg chat.json --ids


# Include reply references

chatpack tg chat.json -r


# Include edit timestamps

chatpack tg chat.json -e


# All metadata

chatpack tg chat.json -t -r -e --ids

Other Options

# Custom output file

chatpack tg chat.json -o my_output.csv


# Disable message merging

chatpack tg chat.json --no-merge

Output Examples

CSV (default)

Sender;Content
Alice;Hey! How are you?
Bob;Good thanks! Just finished the project.
Alice;Nice! Let's celebrate 🎉

JSON

[
  {"sender": "Alice", "content": "Hey! How are you?"},
  {"sender": "Bob", "content": "Good thanks! Just finished the project."},
  {"sender": "Alice", "content": "Nice! Let's celebrate 🎉"}
]

JSONL

{"sender":"Alice","content":"Hey! How are you?"}
{"sender":"Bob","content":"Good thanks! Just finished the project."}
{"sender":"Alice","content":"Nice! Let's celebrate 🎉"}

Technical Details

Source	Format	Features
Telegram	JSON	IDs, timestamps, replies, edits, nested text
WhatsApp	TXT	Auto-detect locale (US/EU/RU), multiline, system filter
Instagram	JSON	Mojibake fix, empty message filter

Performance

Tested on 500MB files with toxic data (Zalgo, emoji spam, 100KB strings):

Metric	Value
Throughput	17-24K msg/s
Memory	~2x file size
Max tested	516 MB, 100K messages

CLI Reference

chatpack <SOURCE> <INPUT> [OPTIONS]

Sources:
  tg, telegram    Telegram JSON export
  wa, whatsapp    WhatsApp TXT export
  ig, instagram   Instagram JSON export

Options:
  -o, --output <FILE>     Output file [default: optimized_chat.csv]
  -f, --format <FORMAT>   Output format: csv, json, jsonl [default: csv]
  -t, --timestamps        Include timestamps
  -r, --replies           Include reply references
  -e, --edited            Include edit timestamps
      --ids               Include message IDs
      --no-merge          Don't merge consecutive messages
      --after <DATE>      Filter: after date (YYYY-MM-DD)
      --before <DATE>     Filter: before date (YYYY-MM-DD)
      --from <USER>       Filter: from specific sender
  -h, --help              Print help
  -V, --version           Print version

Use Cases

Feed chat to LLM

chatpack tg chat.json -o context.csv

# Then paste context.csv into ChatGPT/Claude

Build RAG dataset

chatpack tg chat.json -f jsonl -t -o dataset.jsonl

# Each line is a document with timestamp

Analyze specific period

chatpack tg chat.json --after 2024-01-01 --before 2024-02-01 -f json

Export single person's messages

chatpack wa chat.txt --from "Mom" -o mom_messages.csv

License

MIT © Mukhammedali Berektassuly