Chats you can still read

I lost a digital conversation with someone dear to me. Since then I've been obsessed with owning my data.

Platforms are closed. Your messages live on their servers, in their format, under their rules. If a backup corrupts, you can't get years of conversations back. It happened to me, and it isn't pleasant.

So I changed my habits. I back up my chats regularly, and I keep the copies offline. A message that exists in one place is a message you can lose.

The part nobody tells you

Owning your data means being able to open it, whenever you want. That's not always true.

Export a chat from WhatsApp or Telegram and you get an archive with a .txt file and a pile of media. Photos, voice notes and videos sit next to it in no order that makes sense. The conversation is technically yours. Reading it is another story.

A backup you can't read isn't much of an archive. It's a folder you hope never to open.

Where it ended up

I decided to bring it into Obsidian. It's my main app, and the place where I keep what matters to me. I built Kith there for my contacts, and Crate for my vinyl collection. My chats belong in the same place.

So I built Parley, a plugin for Obsidian.

What it is

Parley reads an exported chat and shows it like a chat. Point it at a folder or a zip and you scroll through the conversation again, with its media linked where it belongs. It works with WhatsApp and Telegram exports.

What it isn't

It isn't a converter. Parley only reads. It never creates notes in your vault, and your export stays exactly where you left it. It also works on desktop only.

Try it

The code is public on GitHub.