this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2023
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ChatVault - store your whatsapp messages (alien.top)
submitted 11 months ago by NeoJackOfBlades@alien.top to c/main@selfhosted.forum
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I think this is a pretty niche demand and probably another topic for r/DataHoarder but anyway, here I am.

I created this application to basically have a way to store my WhatsApp messages away from the Google/Meta servers. Or at least not depend so much on Google backup.

Whatsapp has a very limited export functionality, which any user can use through the app's own interface. Once these messages and media have been exported, you can place them in a folder monitored by ChatVault, send them to an email monitored by ChatVault or upload them via the interface. Once ingested by chatvault, it will record the chat media on disk and save the messages in a database in a structured way. These messages can be accessed in a front end similar to a chat application.

It's still under development, some things need to be improved (mainly the UI), it's still far from ideal, it's true, the way Whatsapp allows us to export messages is quite bad, which makes the entire process of exporting and ingesting it into chatvault quite coupled but it can still be useful for those who want to store their messages independently, just like I wanted.

https://github.com/vitormarcal/chatvault

Edit: add an application interface image

The UI still needs some work, but it serves the purpose

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[–] siddharthal@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Couldn't get it to work. Tried running it in docker. Getting this error

:: Spring Boot :: (v3.1.2) 2023-11-15T17:10:53.882Z INFO 1

[ main] dev.marcal.chatvault.Boot$Companion : Starting Boot.Companion v0.0.1-SNAPSHOT using Java 17.0.9 with PID 1 (/app/chatvault.jar started by root in /app) 2023-11-15T17:10:53.976Z INFO 1

[ main] dev.marcal.chatvault.Boot$Companion : No active profile set, falling back to 1 default profile: "default" [Too many errors, abort]

[–] NeoJackOfBlades@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I just cleared all images and containers to make sure I wasn't working with any cache and that everything went fine.

This message is expected because we are not defining any profiles: No active profile set, falling back to 1 default profile: "default".

Then I would have to see what error happened after that. The only properties required are the database connection properties.That being said, you can run compose.yml in the project root.It will build an image locally.Or replace the build: ./ line with the image: ghcr.io/vitormarcal/chatvault:latest

docker-compose -f compose.yml

I tested these two ways here and they continue to work. Have you added database information?

[–] siddharthal@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I tried with this setup only. This was my docker setup.

chatvault: image: ghcr.io/vitormarcal/chatvault:latest restart: unless-stopped environment: - SPRING_DATASOURCE_URL=jdbc:postgresql://postgres:5432/chatvault - SPRING_DATASOURCE_USERNAME=${POSTGRES_USER} - SPRING_DATASOURCE_PASSWORD=${POSTGRES_PASSWORD} ports: - 8106:8080 volumes: - '~/chatvault:/opt/chatvault' - '~/chatvault/config:/config' depends_on: - postgres

[–] NeoJackOfBlades@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm sorry about that, is your Operating System Unix or Windows? x86 or arm? I tested it on Ubuntu server and fedora and it is correct, I will test it on Windows soon. I'm trying to imagine what it could still be.

[–] siddharthal@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

It was ARM