B balanga Mar 19, 2026 #1 How do people format exported WhatsApp Chats? I tried a few suggestions AI suggestions but they weren't particularly useful. One suggestion was: sed 's/^\[\(.*\)\] \(.*\):/\1 - \2:/' chat.txt > clean.txt Any other suggestins?
How do people format exported WhatsApp Chats? I tried a few suggestions AI suggestions but they weren't particularly useful. One suggestion was: sed 's/^\[\(.*\)\] \(.*\):/\1 - \2:/' chat.txt > clean.txt Any other suggestins?
doul Mar 19, 2026 #2 I don't even know what is the Whatsapp layout, what you have in and what you want out ? To manage this you could use various tools or languages : grep, sed, awk, C, Perl ... According to the complexity of the work to get done.
I don't even know what is the Whatsapp layout, what you have in and what you want out ? To manage this you could use various tools or languages : grep, sed, awk, C, Perl ... According to the complexity of the work to get done.
OP B balanga Mar 19, 2026 Thread Starter #3 doul said: I don't even know what is the Whatsapp layout, what you have in and what you want out ? To manage this you could use various tools or languages : grep, sed, awk, C, Perl ... According to the complexity of the work to get done. Click to expand... Actually it's very straightforward once exported: 16/05/25, 13:57 - +1 (424) 303-9930: Hi Click to expand... Basically timestamp, '-' WhatsAppID ':' message I think I should be able to handle that fairly easily.
doul said: I don't even know what is the Whatsapp layout, what you have in and what you want out ? To manage this you could use various tools or languages : grep, sed, awk, C, Perl ... According to the complexity of the work to get done. Click to expand... Actually it's very straightforward once exported: 16/05/25, 13:57 - +1 (424) 303-9930: Hi Click to expand... Basically timestamp, '-' WhatsAppID ':' message I think I should be able to handle that fairly easily.
doul Mar 19, 2026 #4 If you want to grab the text cut everything before ':' + space Code: # echo '16/05/25, 13:57 - +1 (424) 303-9930: Hi' | sed 's|^.*: ||' Hi ( I prefer to use the | separator rather than /, this avoids having to escape \/)
If you want to grab the text cut everything before ':' + space Code: # echo '16/05/25, 13:57 - +1 (424) 303-9930: Hi' | sed 's|^.*: ||' Hi ( I prefer to use the | separator rather than /, this avoids having to escape \/)
