Chat Chemistry

In WhatsApp open the chat, tap its name, choose Export chat, then Without media. Choose the .txt file here. If you exported with media you get a .zip: you can choose that too, and only the chat text inside it is read.

Telegram’s export is made in Telegram Desktop (the computer app): open the chat, open its menu, choose Export chat history, set the format to JSON and leave media off. Choose result.json here. You can move the file to your phone and use this page there. A full export with many chats lets you pick one.

A chat where exactly two people wrote. If three or more people wrote, it looks like a group, and the page says so and points to Year in review, which is made for groups. If only one person wrote, there is nothing to compare, so no cards are made.

To ask which of the two is you. They are shown on this page only, in that one question. The cards say “You” and “Them” until you type other names, and the names you type are the only names that appear on a card or in the video.

A conversation starts with the first message after 6 hours or more of quiet between messages. The first message of the whole chat counts as a start too. Each start is given to the person who sent that message. Two numbers are shown: starts by you and starts by them. 6 hours is the same rule Year in review uses.

When one of you writes right after the other, with less than 6 hours between the two messages, that is a reply. The wait is the time between them in whole minutes (seconds are ignored, so a phone that records seconds and one that does not give the same answer). The card shows each person’s middle wait: half their replies came faster, half slower. A half minute rounds up, and “under a minute” means both messages fall in the same clock minute. The reply card is left out if either of you has no replies.

Two or more messages in a row from the same person with less than 6 hours between them, before the other person writes. A run of any length counts once. After 6 hours of quiet the next message starts a new conversation instead.

For each of you, take the share of your own messages that were sent in each hour of the day (12am to 11pm). For each hour keep the smaller of your two shares. Add the 24 smaller shares and multiply by 100. That is the percentage. If you wrote in exactly the same hours in the same proportions it is 100%; if you never wrote in the same hour it is 0%. It uses shares, not totals, so it does not matter who writes more. Photos and other media count as messages here. Hours are the export’s own clock.

The emoji both of you have used. They are ranked by the smaller of your two counts, so an emoji only one of you ever sends does not show. A sequence such as a thumbs up with a skin tone, a flag or a person at a laptop counts as one emoji, and a skin tone makes a different emoji from the plain one. Only typed messages are read for emoji. The card is left out if you share none.

Days run from the day of the first message to the day of the last message in the file, counting both. Messages a day is the total divided by that. The biggest day is the calendar day with the most messages from the two of you together. The longest silence is the longest wait between two messages in the whole chat, shown when it is a day or more, with the day it ended.

Counts cannot say that. Who texts first or replies faster says more about habits, phones and time zones than about feelings, so the cards show the counts side by side and nothing else. The one percentage is the hours overlap, and its formula is above.

Yes, as messages, in the days, starts, replies, double texts, hours, biggest day and silence. WhatsApp writes them as “media omitted” and does not say which kind, so the cards say messages, not photos. WhatsApp exports have no reactions.

The export’s own. WhatsApp and Telegram write times in the time zone of the phone or computer that exported, with no time zone in the file, so that is what the hours and days follow.

Yes. Once the cards are made, press “Download your video” (on a phone, “Make my video” and then share it). It is made in your browser tab as a silent 1080×1920 video of up to a minute and is named our-story-so-far. It has no music: add your own in Instagram. The last slide says “Make yours at oddbits.tech”. Change the names before you make it: the video uses them as they are when you press the button.

Some WhatsApp exports write 03/04 without saying which is the month. If the file is like that, a day/month switch appears; flip it.

Free. Every card and video carries a small oddbits.tech mark.