Faced the same problem a couple weeks ago. I ended up paying for this chrome extension which crawls them from the web client and worked for me: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/backup-whatsapp-ch...

A shame that WhatsApp had to remove that feature.

It was just the last 10k lines right? That used to just be a few months of backup chats with my girlfriend. I'd have to have made about 20 different backups (and somehow time them right) over time and pieced them together to get a full picture. And then it'd still be text-only.

Was there any reason provided for the removal? I think it should in fact be essential in EU where they must follow. GDPR regulations and allow users to export their data easily.

There is a pending patent dispute with Blackberry and a German court ordered them to remove the chat export for German users.

> There is a pending patent dispute with Blackberry and a German court ordered them to remove the chat export for German users.

A patent on backup up files?! Oh frak this system is broken beyond repair...

For anyone wondering about the specifics:

"For example, there was a dispute about whether Whatsapp uses a technology that Blackberry holds a patent on when sending a chat history to a third party via email."

(translated via Deepl, source https://t3n.de/news/gericht-verbietet-apps-whatsapp-1231364/)

The actual legal claims are in this document: http://docs.dpaq.de/13322-031127684372.pdf

For anyone curious, some googling found me this:

https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/1014#issu...

> This feature is unavailable in Germany due to patent concerns:

> https://www.teltarif.de/whatsapp-chat-exportieren-iphone/new... (article in German)

Chat history isn't stored server side, so gdpr doesn't apply here.

I always wondered about that. If a closed source app keeps my data in their silo, but I own the hardware their software runs on, I can't do anything with GDPR? Aren't they the controller if they run the software?

Exactly. We're not owners of that data, they are. Should be an extension of the regulations IMHO.

That's also my "HO" but I was more wondering how to interpret this from a legal perspective. I've read large parts of the GDPR law but don't (at least off the top of my head) remember anything that would say either way.