JSON --format type?

[hunterunger]

I think the most useful export format would be json for automation tasks.
Would this be possible to add easily? Even a very basic version?

[ReagentX]

I'm happy to work on this if there's enough interest, but we must think about what a feature-complete JSON export would look like. Can you provide some examples?

[ReagentX]

I can of course just serialize the data in each message struct, but that doesn't account for replies/threads, attachments, sticker types, edits, and many other standard iMessage features.

[hunterunger]

Even that would be very useful to me.

What about just including the relevant keys to each message. Would that generally cover replies, attachments, and stickers? Like so:

"messages": [
   {
      ...
      "guid": "8E1628CD-C7E9-455D-A401-4493B4D86C0F",
      "associated_message_guid": null,
      "text": "Can you pick up decaf beans while you're there?",
      "attachment": null,
      "subject":  null
   },
   {
      ...
      "guid": "3E1628CD-C7E9-455D-A401-4493B4D86C0B",
      "associated_message_guid": "8E1628CD-C7E9-455D-A401-4493B4D86C0F",
      "text": "",
      "attachment": "attachments/abc.heic",
   },
]

[ReagentX]

If you want to do that, you could just use serde on the Message struct. That said, I'm not sure what value JSON export provides at all.

I only want imessage-exporter to provide exporters that contain human readable, full featured data. I wrote this project with the library as a separate crate so people could leverage it the way you describe.

[hunterunger]

Ok. I'll try that.
I'll also look around the docs and learn about identifying chatrooms names and participant addresses/phone numbers.

[ReagentX]

FYI, see #62.