Reporters, fact-checkers, investigative editors
Source-grade preservation for working journalists
A source sent you everything over WhatsApp. The story comes out in six months. You need that chat intact, off your phone, off Meta's cloud, and verifiable when an editor or lawyer asks.
Pain points
- WhatsApp's native export is the lowest-fidelity form of the conversation; legal and editorial want the most fidelity
- Phone could be seized, compromised, or simply die between the conversation and the story
- Cloud backup ties the record to a Google/Apple account that's also tied to you
- Third-party PDF tools require uploading source material to a vendor you have no NDA with
- Chain-of-custody questions arise late, when it's too late to re-export the original
How Chat Hoarding answers
- Decryption runs offline on a Mac; no third-party vendor sees source content
- Receipts + sender JIDs + reply context preserved, so the conversation reads exactly as it happened
- Archive cadence (weekly, per-story, per-source) is yours; no backend cron job to forget
- The decryption pipeline is open and documented in `core-swift/.../Crypt15.swift`, so an expert reviewer can see how an archive was produced
Capabilities that matter for this use case
Decrypts the Crypt15 backup locally
AES-256-GCM decryption with your 64-digit key. msgstore.db.crypt15, the only database WhatsApp writes to the user-accessible backup folder. Keys never leave the Mac.
The whole conversation, not just the words
Voice notes, photos, videos, calls, locations, group history, and deletion markers with sender attribution.
Receipts on every message: sent, delivered, read, played
Three-state check indicator with timestamps. Per-recipient breakdown in group chats. Same icons WhatsApp uses.
.tarc, one file, lifetime archive
Bundles manifest, decrypted msgstore.db, an optional contacts.json (imported address book) and manual_contacts.json (your in-app renames), and the media folder, all inside a macOS package. Double-click to open. Survives the phone.
Two network calls. That's it.
Decryption, browsing, archive creation: fully on-device. Companion has no INTERNET permission. Chat Hoarding for Mac's only outbound calls are license activation and the update check.
Ready to archive yours?
$99 lifetime · 2 Macs · revocable from the account page · 14-day refund