(Instead of just saving the archive and attachments folders, for example.) But if you don’t want to think about it, or worry you’ll forget, here’s how to do it automatically. Since the Messages folder also contains metadata, I would just copy/paste the whole thing, just to be safe. Now, you could just stop here and manually copy and paste all of those folders every so often. These could be whatever you shared with your friends, like photos. The attachments folder contains, well, the message attachments. The archive folder contains the actual iChat logs, sorted by date. You’ll see two main folders of interest: Archive and Attachments. Next, copy and paste this file path into the popup window: ~/Library/Messages.Open Finder, and in the menu bar, click Go > Go to Folder. First, we’ll need to find out where your Mac stores the iMessage archives.The method that I created will export your messages in the iChat file format. But it can only save part of the conversation, not the whole thing, although it presents your messages in a nice, readable format. Exporting iMessagesīesides creating a backup, you can also export iMessages as PDFs. Not everyone is comfortable backing up to iCloud though, so you can create your own backups in case something goes wrong and your messages get erased. Apple is bringing iCloud backup to iMessages with iOS 11 and macOS Sierra. Using Automator, it’s possible to archive iMessages on your Mac.

Archive mac mail messages