Instagram message JSON to PDF

Make the record from your own Instagram export

Drop the ZIP from Instagram into the free tool and preview the first 25 messages. Nothing is uploaded — it runs in your browser.

Open the free tool

Instagram's data download stores each conversation as one or more message_1.json, message_2.json… files. They are not meant for reading. This page explains the format and how to turn it into a PDF.

What's inside message_1.json

participants — the names in the chat.
messages — newest first, each with sender_name, timestamp_ms (milliseconds since 1970, UTC) and content.
Optional fields like photos, videos, audio_files, share and reactions.

Common problems

Garbled text: Instagram writes UTF-8 bytes as separate characters, so emoji and accents break. They must be decoded again.
Reverse order: the newest message is first.
Split files: long chats are spread across several JSON files.
Time zone: timestamps are UTC and need converting to local time.

The easy way

The free tool handles all of this in your browser: drop the whole ZIP (or the JSON files), pick the conversation and time zone, and save a PDF. Photos in the ZIP are placed next to the messages that sent them.