termess

• Usage
  • Step 0: Help
  • Step 1: Prepare
  • Step 2: Repair
  • Step 3: Generate
    • 3.1: All chats
    • 3.2: One chat
  • Step 4: Enjoy
  • Notes
• Example scripts
• GRAPHS
• TODO

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Facebook provides a way to download all of user's Messenger activities in JSON format. However, each chat is represented by multiple, bad-encoded files

Make analysis of your Messenger communication easier and more comfortable by transforming all those files into a single plain text file with one message per line

Enables very fast and convenient searching through conversations

Files are formatted to be terminal-friendly and intended for use with terminal tools, but potentially (thanks to simple output) usable anywhere else

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Usage

Step 0: Help

$ termess.sh -h

Shows list of all availible options and their description

Step 1: Prepare

$ termess.sh -p "path_to_zip_archive"

In your current working directory:

• unzips facebook archive
• creates facebook folder where:
  • puts all JSON files into messages folder
  • puts left over folders with media into media folder
  • prepares folder PROCESSED for final files

Skipping this step will cause the rest of script to fail!

Step 2: Repair

$ termess.sh -r

Uses included Ruby script to repair bad encoding of JSON files provided by Facebook

termess will try to search for repair script in the same directory termess.sh is. If not found, user is prompted to enter custom path interactively

Skipping this step can cause messages will not be displayed correctly!

Step 3: Generate

3.1: All chats

$ termess.sh -a

or

$ termess.sh -a "path_to_dir_where_files_will_be_generated"

Creates final files that are ready for further use of your choice

When called without argument, termess will generate files in your current working directory (after your confirmation)

You can use folder facebook/PROCESSED to save all your final files

3.2: One chat

$ termess.sh -f "path_to_one_chat_folder"

Processes just one particular chat

In this case output is only displayed on stdout, but can be redirected to a file by yourself

Step 4: Enjoy

Now you have everything prepared for your Messenger communication analysis to begin

Notes

• All steps can be done with a single command:

$ termess.sh -p <facebook.zip> -r -a facebook/PROCESSED

• Once -p and -r are executed successfully, they are not needed anymore. You can run the script with just -a or -f option after that
• For simple output without colors and alignment, use -sa or -sf instead ('s' has to be always first)

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Example scripts

After you have got your chats processed, you can use example scripts in data_analysis folder to analyse the chats and obtain some interesting information

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GRAPHS

GRAPHS module in GRAPHS folder lets you generate fancy graphs that display total number of either messages, or words sent in given chat per each day

Python script generate.py is called by wrapper bash script GRAPHS.sh

The wrapper script has 2 arguments

• path to a folder containig (some of) the chat files created with the termess utility
• mode option: 1 for messages, 2 for words

Example call of the script is:

$ /GRAPHS.sh "$HOME/Documents/facebook/PROCESSED/" 1

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TODO

• display some information about sent files, gifs, links, etc. rather than just "null"
• message reactions
• better newline handling
• fix parsing problem of some chats