# WhatsApp Migration to Signal

**URL:** <https://onehack.st/t/whatsapp-migration-to-signal/169626>\
**Category:** Discussion & Solutions\
**Tags:** tips-tricks\
**Created:** [January 12, 2021, 7:44pm UTC](https://onehack.st/t/whatsapp-migration-to-signal/169626 "2021-01-12T19:44:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![gzg06](https://onehack.st/user_avatar/onehack.st/gzg06/32/79911_2.png) [@gzg06](https://onehack.st/u/gzg06)\
**Post date:** [January 12, 2021, 7:44pm UTC](https://onehack.st/t/whatsapp-migration-to-signal/169626/1 "2021-01-12T19:44:54Z")

</div>

Dear 1HAcK friends,

Yesterday due to the massive amount of friends asking me if they should move to Signal after the enforce new WhatsApp T&S and after obviously advising them that in terms of privacy it has been the right move for years.

One of them ask me if they could export their conversations (after reading the T&S I was unable to find anything referring specifically to this topic but I am no lawyer so in my mind so far is a grey area legally speaking). I answered that so far it was not posible to my friend but during my little sleep night my hacker mind was bothering me with obviously it is posible ( Since you own the key for the AES encryption is easy to get the conversations from the backups files but the difficult part would be to create a new file as a Signal backup that could not just read but allocate the information in the right order. Signal been focused in security I don’t imagine an smooth profiling but it could be that they share more in common that one can expect with this information even when the number of some of your friends are not in signal yet it would allow you to erase the WhatsApp waiting for them to join you at the other side of moon.

Knowing that this is far from my areas of expertise or capabilities as one man project I set my self to write this message to see if someone could guide me or provide their input and opinions. I am willing to dedicate some time to the project if more people are interested and can contribute.

Anyways I reach to you since I believe is posible but not particular easy…maybe it could easier than we think.

I will be making more research and posting my findings here.

Thanks for your time and for been part of such an amazing community.  
3nK1

* * *

Step 1  
Starting our journey lets see where the rabbit hole take us…shall we?

Google Drive  
[Here](https://www.techpanther.in/2020/06/updated-how-to-extract-whatsapp-media.html) I found a python 3.x scrip from techpanther to extract all the chat or media backup on google drive.  
Local Backup  
In case you have WhatsApp Backups in your local storage you can just look for WhatsApp folder in the internal memory of your phone and transfer a copy to your pc.

Step 2

We will decrypt the chats so far I found this method that works with non rooted android phones Adroid 4.0 up to Android 7.0.

For this we will need  
Java: [https://www.java.com/pt\_BR/download/](https://www.java.com/pt_BR/download/)  
Drivers ADB: [https://adb.clockworkmod.com/](https://adb.clockworkmod.com/)  
Script by EliteAndroidApps: [WhatsApp-Key-DB-Extractor](https://github.com/EliteAndroidApps/WhatsApp-Key-DB-Extractor/)  
CHAT Visualizer by andreas-mausch: [whatsapp-viewer](https://github.com/andreas-mausch/whatsapp-viewer)  
Then just translate this [page] by limontec([https://www.limontec.com/2020/02/extract-chat-whatsapp-android-no-root.html](https://www.limontec.com/2020/02/extract-chat-whatsapp-android-no-root.html)) and follow steps.

Step 3 will be to extract and decrypt signal back up DB

Step 4 Will be to compare both DBs and probably create a script that format WhatsApp backup to signal backup format so that msg are in a chronological order.

Step 5 Will be to run the backup on signal pray 😀 well from there we probably will need to debug and probably crash the app a few 100 of times until we get it right or perhaps been signal a non profit org contact them asking for some help.

I will try tomorrow to move to step 3 and 4 maybe some warriors join me and I wake up with a solution for those steps.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BadFella](https://onehack.st/user_avatar/onehack.st/badfella/32/88045_2.png) [@BadFella](https://onehack.st/u/BadFella)\
**Post date:** [January 12, 2021, 11:50pm UTC](https://onehack.st/t/whatsapp-migration-to-signal/169626/2 "2021-01-12T23:50:29Z")

</div>

Nice Initiative Man…

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kamranyusuf](https://onehack.st/user_avatar/onehack.st/kamranyusuf/32/44842_2.png) [@kamranyusuf](https://onehack.st/u/kamranyusuf)\
**Post date:** [January 13, 2021, 9:34am UTC](https://onehack.st/t/whatsapp-migration-to-signal/169626/3 "2021-01-13T09:34:35Z")

</div>

Can’t wait for the end results.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kamranyusuf](https://onehack.st/user_avatar/onehack.st/kamranyusuf/32/44842_2.png) [@kamranyusuf](https://onehack.st/u/kamranyusuf)\
**Post date:** [January 13, 2021, 5:33pm UTC](https://onehack.st/t/whatsapp-migration-to-signal/169626/4 "2021-01-13T17:33:37Z")

</div>

> [@gzg06](#):
>
> Dear 1HAcK friends,
> 
> Yesterday due to the massive amount of friends asking me if they should move to Signal after the enforce new WhatsApp T&S and after obviously advising them that in terms of privacy it has been the right move for years.
> 
> One of them ask me if they could export their conversations (after reading the T&S I was unable to find anything referring specifically to this topic but I am no lawyer so in my mind so far is a grey area legally speaking). I answered that so far it was not posible to my friend but during my little sleep night my hacker mind was bothering me with obviously it is posible ( Since you own the key for the AES encryption is easy to get the conversations from the backups files but the difficult part would be to create a new file as a Signal backup that could not just read but allocate the information in the right order. Signal been focused in security I don’t imagine an smooth profiling but it could be that they share more in common that one can expect with this information even when the number of some of your friends are not in signal yet it would allow you to erase the WhatsApp waiting for them to join you at the other side of moon.
> 
> Knowing that this is far from my areas of expertise or capabilities as one man project I set my self to write this message to see if someone could guide me or provide their input and opinions. I am willing to dedicate some time to the project if more people are interested and can contribute.
> 
> Anyways I reach to you since I believe is posible but not particular easy…maybe it could easier than we think.
> 
> I will be making more research and posting my findings here.
> 
> Thanks for your time and for been part of such an amazing community.  
> 3nK1
> 
> Step 1  
> Starting our journey lets see where the rabbit hole take us…shall we?
> 
> Google Drive  
> [Here](https://www.techpanther.in/2020/06/updated-how-to-extract-whatsapp-media.html) I found a python 3.x scrip from techpanther to extract all the chat or media backup on google drive.  
> Local Backup  
> In case you have WhatsApp Backups in your local storage you can just look for WhatsApp folder in the internal memory of your phone and transfer a copy to your pc.
> 
> Step 2
> 
> We will decrypt the chats so far I found this method that works with non rooted android phones Adroid 4.0 up to Android 7.0.
> 
> For this we will need  
> Java: [https://www.java.com/pt\_BR/download/](https://www.java.com/pt_BR/download/)  
> Drivers ADB: [https://adb.clockworkmod.com/](https://adb.clockworkmod.com/)  
> Script by EliteAndroidApps: [WhatsApp-Key-DB-Extractor](https://github.com/EliteAndroidApps/WhatsApp-Key-DB-Extractor/)  
> CHAT Visualizer by andreas-mausch: [whatsapp-viewer](https://github.com/andreas-mausch/whatsapp-viewer)  
> Then just translate this [page] by limontec([https://www.limontec.com/2020/02/extract-chat-whatsapp-android-no-root.html](https://www.limontec.com/2020/02/extract-chat-whatsapp-android-no-root.html)) and follow steps.
> 
> Step 3 will be to extract and decrypt signal back up DB
> 
> Step 4 Will be to compare both DBs and probably create a script that format WhatsApp backup to signal backup format so that msg are in a chronological order.
> 
> Step 5 Will be to run the backup on signal pray 😀 well from there we probably will need to debug and probably crash the app a few 100 of times until we get it right or perhaps been signal a non profit org contact them asking for some help.
> 
> I will try tomorrow to move to step 3 and 4 maybe some warriors join me and I wake up with a solution for those steps.

For step 3, you can use this [https://github.com/xeals/signal-back](https://github.com/xeals/signal-back)  
Haven’t tested it, but I hope it works.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![gzg06](https://onehack.st/user_avatar/onehack.st/gzg06/32/79911_2.png) [@gzg06](https://onehack.st/u/gzg06)\
**Post date:** [January 13, 2021, 6:35pm UTC](https://onehack.st/t/whatsapp-migration-to-signal/169626/5 "2021-01-13T18:35:44Z")

</div>

Thank you for the support @kamranyusuf! I will tested and add it to the steps if it works.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![riley9594](https://onehack.st/user_avatar/onehack.st/riley9594/32/46320_2.png) [@riley9594](https://onehack.st/u/riley9594)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 5:33am UTC](https://onehack.st/t/whatsapp-migration-to-signal/169626/6 "2021-01-14T05:33:32Z")

</div>

thanks for share

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![gzg06](https://onehack.st/user_avatar/onehack.st/gzg06/32/79911_2.png) [@gzg06](https://onehack.st/u/gzg06)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 8:28pm UTC](https://onehack.st/t/whatsapp-migration-to-signal/169626/7 "2021-01-14T20:28:59Z")

</div>

I can now confirm that Step 3 is working with signal back by xeals [https://github.com/xeals/signal-back](https://github.com/xeals/signal-back) recommended by @kamranyusuf, after further examination of the raw files in step 4 I realize is not going to be easy I will try to work in a scrip that will convert WhatsApp raw format to signal raw format so that we can encrypt it back and see what happens but so far I think the pictures and voice messages are going to be a pain.  
Note: the .unknown files are mainly .mpeg of the voice messages so just change the extension or alternatively use [https://checkfiletype.com](https://checkfiletype.com) or [http://www.chmaas.handshake.de/delphi/freeware/xvi32/xvi32.htm#screenshots](http://www.chmaas.handshake.de/delphi/freeware/xvi32/xvi32.htm#screenshots) to check extensions.

see you in a few days!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![EVIL\_GOD](https://onehack.st/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@EVIL\_GOD](https://onehack.st/u/EVIL_GOD)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2021, 3:48am UTC](https://onehack.st/t/whatsapp-migration-to-signal/169626/8 "2021-02-04T03:48:07Z")

</div>

Hey there just got to know about Telegram’s new feature instead of migrating to signal u can move all chats to telegram  
refer how to do it here [https://telegram.org/blog/move-history](https://telegram.org/blog/move-history)

maybe for signal migration instead of decrypting the whatsapp’s entire backup u can use exprting chats(individual/group) method so that u get chats in plain text from
