Instagram DM to PDF - Export Instagram Messages as a Readable Transcript

How it works.

There is one specific defect in Instagram's export that everything else follows from: the text is written as UTF-8 bytes escaped as if they were Latin-1. So every emoji and every accented name arrives as nonsense like JosÃ©. Nearly every free converter passes that straight through. Undoing it is most of the work here.

Step 1

Ask Instagram for your data

Settings, Accounts Centre, Your information and permissions, Download your information. Choose JSON, not HTML. It arrives by email, usually within a day.

Step 2

Upload the zip

Drop the whole zip here without unpacking it. Your messages live at messages/inbox and there is one folder per conversation, so the longest one is picked and you are told how many others were in there.

Step 3

Check the names read properly, then download

The preview is where you confirm the accented names and emoji came out right. The PDF has the conversation with dates, senders and photos.

Four ways to print it.

Every sample below is a real page from the same renderer that makes your file, not a drawing of one. Pick the style above before you upload, or change it and preview again.

A page of a transcript in the Chat bubbles style — **Chat bubbles**Looks like the conversation did. Best for keeping, or for showing someone.

A page of a transcript in the Clean document style — **Clean document**Plain and readable, made for paper. The safe choice if you are not sure.

A page of a transcript in the Formal / legal style — **Formal / legal**Numbered entries and full timestamps, for a hearing or a claim. No colour, so it photocopies.

A page of a transcript in the Book style — **Book**Set like a printed book, for binding or keeping. Warm paper, wide margins.

Trust, with receipts.

No invented review scores, no badges, no “trusted by thousands”. Here is what is actually true, and you can check every line of it.

You see the result before you payUpload, look at your own parsed file, then decide. No account, no card, no email required to get that far.
Files are deleted within 7 daysYour upload, anything extracted from it, and the finished download. Automatically, on a schedule.
A real person runs thisJade Riley, in Johannesburg, South Africa. Questions go to hello@onetimetool.com and I answer them myself.
Your card never touches this siteCheckout is hosted by Dodo Payments. I never see your card number.
One payment, for this one jobThere is no subscription, no plan and nothing to cancel. The price above is the whole price.
7-day money backIf the output is not what you needed, email me and I refund it. No form to fill in.

Questions, answered.

Why do the names in my export look like JosÃ©?

Because Instagram writes the file in a way that double-encodes every character above plain ASCII. The information is not lost, it is just written wrongly, and it can be decoded back. That is what this does before anything else.

My conversation is split across message_1.json and message_2.json.

That happens on long threads, and awkwardly message_1 holds the newest block rather than the oldest. Upload the whole zip and they are merged and sorted by timestamp, so the order is right regardless.

Do photos come through?

Yes, when you upload the full zip. Photos are stored beside the messages and get placed with the message they belong to.

What about unsent messages and calls?

An unsent message is marked as unsent, and a call shows as a call with its length. Most tools drop both because neither has a text field.

What happens to my file?

It is deleted within 7 days, along with the finished PDF. It is used to make your file and nothing else. Nobody reads it.

Do I need an account?

No. There is no signup, no subscription and no password. You upload, you see the result, you pay once if you want it.

Turn your Instagram DMs into a PDF

Your preview