The data rescue checklist

Request every export before you delete anything. Files take between a few hours and several days to build, and the download link dies with the account. This is the single most common irreversible mistake.

Tick items off as you go — your progress is saved in this browser, so you can close the tab and come back.

How long each export takes

Choose HTML over JSON if the platform asks — HTML opens in a browser and is readable years later. JSON is better only if you plan to process it with code. Where offered, pick the highest media quality; the default is often compressed.

An export is not a backup until you have opened it

This is the step nearly everyone skips, and it is the one that turns a successful export into a real one. A download that stopped halfway looks exactly like a download that finished — same filename, same folder, same reassuring green tick.

1. Check the file size against what the platform said it would be. A 40MB archive where 4GB was promised did not work.
2. Extract the archive fully rather than peeking inside it. Zip files can open and still be truncated.
3. Open the index or HTML file and click through to a few different sections.
4. Open media from the oldest folder, not the newest. Archives tend to fail at the far end, and the old material is what you cannot recreate.
5. Only then delete the account.

Do not leave the only copy in your Downloads folder. It is the first thing a disk cleanup removes, the first thing lost when a laptop dies, and the least likely place anyone looks in five years. Move it to an external drive or a cloud account you are keeping — and if it is a cloud account, one that is not the account you are about to delete.

What exports routinely leave out

Every platform's export has holes, and they are broadly the same holes. Assume these are missing until you have checked otherwise:

• Disappearing and expiring messages, which were never stored to be exported.
• Voice notes and video messages, frequently absent even where text chat is included.
• Other people's replies — you get your side of a conversation, not theirs.
• Anything with someone else's copyright, such as streamed music in playlists or licensed video.
• Stats and analytics, which are almost never exportable in any usable form. Screenshot those.
• Structure — album order, playlist order, folder hierarchy and database views are often flattened.

Where something genuinely matters and is not in the export, a screenshot is not a lesser option — it is the only option. Take it while you still have an account to take it from.