On: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages an...

[closeparen]

On your Mac, iMessages are stored in a SQLite database which you can inspect.

https://spin.atomicobject.com/2020/05/22/search-imessage-sql...

[kccqzy → closeparen]

Can confirm. Shameless plug: I wrote a script to extract the pertinent information from the SQLite database into an HTML page a while back: https://github.com/kccqzy/imessage-db-extract/blob/master/im... It's open source abandonware though. Lost interest in keeping up with the schema updates because I no longer use iMessage.

[chmaynard → closeparen]

That's an undocumented implementation detail. It might change without warning at any time. Are you seriously recommending this as a solution for users who want to be able to read past messages?

[tedunangst → chmaynard]

Works a lot better than doing nothing.

[koolba → chmaynard]

I’d imagine it’d be difficult for Apple to migrate to anything substantially different as it’d require rewriting a potentially multi GB file, the space for which many users would not have. It’s effectively a massive, distributed, database migration.

[shepherdjerred → koolba]

Database formats change all of the time. There's no technical challenge here that hasn't been solved before.

[stevenhuang → chmaynard]

Your indignation is strange.

Why would you not recommend it when there's no alternative?

[atatatat → stevenhuang]

His hacker ethos is broken recently.

Lighten up a little, GP.

[alisonkisk → chmaynard]

Seems relevant news for hackers.

[kemayo → closeparen]

That does work, but only for messages stored locally. If you've enabled Messages in iCloud, it won't reliably contain everything.

[mdoms → closeparen]

What if you don't have a Mac? This is not a solution.

[mmwelt → mdoms]

The business solution would be... buy one! :-P

[meepmorp → closeparen]

Same format as on iOS; you can/could copy the db out of an unencrypted iTunes dump.

And, yeah, it’s a total mess.