Import Your Messages History on a Mac

If you use Messages on a Mac, the conversations already sitting there can become part of your contacts' records. Groupthink reads the Messages database on your own machine, you tick the conversations you want, and each one is filed onto the contact whose phone number or Apple ID it matches. When nothing matches, the import asks you who the conversation belongs to. Either way it ends up as a Text interaction on that person's timeline, alongside meetings and forwarded email.

This lives in the Groupthink desktop app for Mac. Click Messages under Conversations in the left sidebar, and the card called Messages on this Mac is in the Messages settings pane at the top. The same card is also under Settings > Capture. The web app shows the same card with a Mac app only label, because the reading happens on your machine.

What is read, and what leaves your Mac

The card states this before you turn anything on, and it is worth repeating here:

• Your Messages database is read on this Mac only. Nothing is read until you turn this on. That includes the list of who you text, which is itself private information.
• Only the conversations you tick are sent to Groupthink. Group chats are listed only when they have 8 or fewer other people, and only the groups you tick are synced. Larger group chats are never listed, and their messages are never read.
• Uploaded conversations are stored and can be deleted from your notes at any time.
• Filing a conversation to a contact saves that sender's phone number or Apple ID email address onto the contact, so the next conversation from the same handle files itself. This is the one thing an import writes to a contact record. An Apple ID address is saved as an email, and the other conversations waiting from it are filed too. If that contact already has a number, the new one is added as an extra number, so texts from either reach the same person. Nothing is saved if another of your contacts already has that number or address, or if it is one of your own.
• Disconnecting stops all future reading and clears what this Mac remembers about the import.

Once you have imported a conversation, Groupthink keeps that one up to date: it checks for new messages about a minute after the desktop app opens, and every 15 minutes while it is running. Only conversations you imported and have not stopped are read, plus any you named on your iPhone or the web (see below). A conversation you have never picked or named is never read, on any schedule. You can switch this off with Keep imported conversations up to date on the card.

Before you start

• A Mac running the Groupthink desktop app, signed in.
• Messages history on that Mac. If your texts live only on your iPhone, turn on Messages in iCloud and let them sync down first.

Step 1: Turn on Messages import

In the desktop app, click Messages under Conversations in the left sidebar. The Messages settings pane at the top holds Messages on this Mac (if the pane is closed, click Source settings). It starts Off.

Click Turn on Messages import. This is the consent step. Nothing has been read up to this point.

Step 2: Grant Full Disk Access

macOS blocks every app from reading the Messages database until you grant Full Disk Access. Two things about this surprise people, so here they are plainly.

There is no in-app prompt. macOS gives apps no way to ask for Full Disk Access. Groupthink can only send you to the right settings pane. The card gives you an Open Privacy & Security button that opens it directly.

macOS quits Groupthink the moment you flip the switch. That is macOS applying the change, not a crash. The card has a Restart Groupthink button for exactly this, and once you reopen the app you can come back to the card and click Check again.

One grant covers both databases. Groupthink also reads the Contacts database on this Mac, so the conversation list can show names instead of phone numbers. Full Disk Access covers both, so there is no second permission to grant and no second prompt.

The steps:

1. Click Open Privacy & Security on the card.
2. Under Privacy & Security > Full Disk Access, turn on Groupthink.
3. macOS quits Groupthink. Reopen it.
4. Go back to Messages under Conversations. The card now reads On.

Step 3: Choose conversations

Click Choose conversations. Groupthink lists the 500 most recent one-to-one conversations on this Mac, with a message count and when the last message arrived. Each row leads with the name Messages itself shows for that person.

A few things about that list:

• One-to-one conversations are listed here. Group chats have their own list below it.
• Names come from Contacts on this Mac and never leave it. Groupthink reads the same address book Messages reads, so a row says Maya Okonjo instead of +15035551234. The name is a label on your own screen. It is not a decision about which contact the conversation belongs to, and nothing about your contacts is sent to Groupthink.
• The phone number or Apple ID stays on the row, next to the message count. That is the thing you cross-check against Messages, so it is always in view.
• A conversation with no contact card shows as a number. This is the common case, not a failure. Messages shows those as bare numbers too.
• Search by name or number. The box above the list filters as you type. Numbers are compared digit by digit, so typing 503 555 finds +15035551234 and you do not have to guess how the number was stored.
• Automated senders are hidden. The short codes that carry two-factor codes, delivery alerts, and marketing are folded away behind a Show automated senders checkbox, which tells you how many there are. If you cannot find the thread from your pharmacy, tick that box.
• With Keep imported conversations up to date on, conversations you imported before are already ticked and marked Syncing · up to date, or Syncing · new texts on the next sync when there is something new (Syncing · last sync didn't finish if the last sync failed). A line above the list reads Checked conversations are syncing, says how often new texts arrive, and ends Uncheck one to stop syncing it. Untick one and the row asks "Stop syncing Maya Okonjo? Notes already imported stay in Groupthink." Click Stop syncing to stop it, or Keep syncing to leave it on. It is then marked Sync stopped. Tick it again and import, and it picks up where it stopped. With the switch off, they are marked Imported, or New messages since import if there is anything new.

Tick the conversations you want. You can pick up to 25 per import. The import button tells you roughly how many notes that will produce before you press it.

Ticking a conversation and then searching for something else does not untick it. The count on the import button, and the import itself, cover everything you ticked, on screen or not.

Group texts

Below the conversations, a Group texts list shows the group chats on this Mac that have 8 or fewer other people in them. Larger groups are not listed, and their messages are never read.

• Nothing is ticked until you tick it. Each group is ticked on its own, and the choice is saved on this Mac straight away. There is no import button for groups.
• Each row shows the group's name from Messages. A group with no name shows the names of the people in it from Contacts on this Mac, then how many others there are. Phone numbers are not shown for groups. Under the name is how many other people are in the group and when its last message arrived.
• A ticked group goes onto the record of each person in it who is in Groupthink, so their last talked moves when the group does.
• Untick a group to stop syncing it. Texts from that group that were already added stay on each person's record and can be deleted from your notes like any other.
• A ticked group syncs on the same schedule as your conversations: about a minute after the desktop app opens, every 15 minutes while it runs, and shortly after your Mac wakes, as long as Keep imported conversations up to date is on. It goes up a day at a time, one card per day on each person's page, starting with the last 90 days. Group messages older than 90 days are not sent.
• If a ticked group grows past 8 other people, it stops syncing.

Step 4: Import

Click the import button. Groupthink reads each conversation you ticked, uploads it, and files it onto the matching contact where there is one.

When it finishes you get a plain summary: how many conversation notes were created, how many were already captured, and how many did not go through. Under that summary, every conversation that landed this run is listed by name, with where it went:

• Matched to a contact. A link to that person, so you can open their timeline and read it.
• Matched to nobody. An Attach to a contact button, so you can file it yourself.

If a conversation was long enough that Groupthink stopped partway, the summary says so. Run the import again and it picks up where it left off. Nothing is sent twice.

Filing a conversation to a contact

Expect to do some of this by hand at first. Groupthink matches a text conversation to a contact by phone number, and most contacts do not have one saved yet. So a conversation from a phone number often arrives unmatched. A conversation from an Apple ID email address can still match, because Groupthink already holds email addresses. Nothing is broken when the summary asks you to file most conversations; the matcher just has few numbers to match against yet. You can also add a number to a contact ahead of time with Add phone on their page, or add many at once from your Mac's Contacts.

There are two more places to do this. Who is this? on Today lists the numbers behind synced texts that are not filed under anyone, most texted first. Name a number there and its texts are filed under that person. And in Conversations, each conversation from a number with no name asks for one on its own row.

Filing them is not wasted work. Each conversation you file saves that sender's phone number onto the contact you picked, so the next import has that much more to match against and the list of conversations you have to file gets shorter.

Click Attach to a contact on a row. Groupthink uses the name from Contacts on this Mac to narrow the search for you:

• One contact with that name: you get a button with their name on it. One click files the conversation.
• No contact with that name: you get Create new contact: Maya Okonjo, which creates the person and files the conversation in one step.
• More than one contact with that name: you get all of them and you pick. Groupthink will not choose for you, because filing a conversation to the wrong person quietly is worse than asking.

When your texts say who it is

Sometimes the conversation itself says who the number belongs to: they wrote "hey it's Sam Lee", signed a message, or you greeted them by name. When Groupthink finds a line like that, the row shows a suggested name instead of opening the search:

• This number is probably Sam Lee when they named themselves or signed a message, or This number might be Sam Lee when the guess is weaker, such as you calling them by name.
• Under it, the line it came from: From your texts: "hey it's Sam Lee".

Then pick one:

• It's Sam Lee (when Sam Lee is already one of your contacts) or Add Sam Lee as a contact (when they are not) files the conversation to them and saves the number on their contact, so the next conversation from that number files itself.
• Not Sam turns the guess down. Groupthink will not suggest that name for that number again, and the row goes back to Attach to a contact.
• Someone else opens the usual search, so you can pick the right person by hand.

Nothing is filed until you tap, and the suggestion is shown only to you. Groupthink only reads the texts you imported from that number to make the guess, and it only suggests a name that appears in them. A row gets no suggestion when Contacts on this Mac already has a name for the number (that name is used to narrow the search, as above), when the handle is an Apple ID email address, or when the texts never say a name. A suggestion can take a few seconds to appear after the import finishes.

You can also search your contacts yourself, or close the row and come back to it. Filing a conversation puts it on that person's timeline and reads it again for commitments and context under their name. A long conversation is split into several notes, and all of them move together.

A filed row then reads Filed to with the contact's name and links to them. A row that matched on its own reads View with the name.

Numbers you filed before are matched for you

For a while, filing a conversation put that one conversation on the person and did not save their number. If you filed conversations before 10 September 2026, later texts from those numbers kept arriving filed to nobody, even though you had already said who they were.

Groupthink now finishes that for you. The next time Who is this? loads on Today, each of those numbers is saved on the person you filed it under. The conversations that were waiting are filed under them, their last contact date is brought up to date, and later texts from the number file themselves. You do not tap anything. A card tells you what was done:

• The heading counts the matches, for example We matched 8 numbers to people you'd already named. Under it is a row for each number, with the person's name, the last four digits of the number and how many conversations were filed.
• Undo on a row takes it back. The number comes off that person, the conversations that were filed for you go back to filed under nobody, and their last contact date is worked out again without them. Anything you filed under that person yourself stays where you put it. The number goes back under Who is this? for you to name, and Groupthink will not match it for you again.
• Got it closes the card. It is shown once.

This only happens when there is one answer. A number you filed under two different people is left for you to settle, and so is a number you turned down or marked Not someone I track. The match comes only from where you filed that number's conversations yourself.

Phone numbers from your Mac's Contacts

Texts are matched to people by phone number, and most people in Groupthink start without one. If the Contacts app on your Mac already has their numbers, you can add them in one pass instead of filing conversations one at a time.

In the desktop app, the Phone numbers from your Mac's Contacts card sits right under Messages on this Mac in the Messages settings pane (see Step 1), and in Settings under Capture. It needs the same Full Disk Access as the Messages import (see Step 2). In the web app, the card is marked Mac app only.

1. Click Find phone numbers. Groupthink matches the cards in your Mac's Contacts to the people you already have in Groupthink.
2. Review the matches. Each person gets a row that names the card it matched and a tag saying how:
   • Same email: the card has an email address that is on that person. Its numbers start ticked.
   • Same name: the card has the same first and last name as that person, and no other card or person in Groupthink shares that name. Its numbers start unticked, so tick them only if it is the same person. A one-word name such as "Mom" never matches.
3. If the person already has a number, the row says so, for example "Already has (212) 555-0000. Ticked numbers are added alongside it." A number the person already has is not offered again, and copies of the same person from several synced accounts count as one card.
4. Tick the numbers you want and click the button at the bottom, which counts them, such as Add 5 numbers to 3 people. Cancel closes the review without adding anything.

When it finishes, the card reads "Added numbers to 3 people. Texts from them will now file themselves." Lines under it list anything that was not added, such as a number that was already on the right person, a number already on another of your contacts (a number belongs to one person), or an entry that was not a phone number. Click Done to close it.

If nothing matches someone who is missing that number, the card says No numbers to add.

Where imported conversations show up

Every imported conversation lands in Conversations. Click Messages under Conversations in the left sidebar to see only your texts. Each one is a row headed with the number or Apple ID it came from, or with the person's name once it is filed under someone, showing its most recent messages, with a copy button that takes the whole thread.

A conversation whose handle matched one of your contacts also lands on that contact's relationship page, as a Text card in the timeline.

One card per day for recent texts

Texts from the last 90 days show on the person's page as one card per day, not one card per conversation. A later sync adds that day's new messages to the same card. The import summary then says so, for example "Added new messages to 3 days' notes."

Each day's card shows:

• Texts on and the date, for example Texts on September 30, with how many messages there were that day.
• A one-line summary of the day. Groupthink writes it once, overnight after the day has ended. Until then, today's card says Summary tonight. and an earlier day that is still waiting says Summary coming soon.
• Open in Messages, which opens your conversation with that person in the Messages app. It opens the conversation, not that day's messages. The button shows only on a Mac, iPhone or iPad.
• Show messages, which opens the day's messages on the card itself. Hide messages folds them away again.

Texts older than 90 days still arrive as conversation notes, and a long conversation is split into several of them.

Imported conversations are not listed in Recaps. Recaps is for meetings and for interactions you logged as they happened; an imported history is a capture, and a few hundred of them would bury the meetings there.

A conversation that matched nobody sits in Conversations marked Not routed to a contact. Its row offers a suggested name with one click to confirm, or Add a name, so you can file it from there as well as from the import summary. Naming it saves the number on that person and files every waiting conversation from that number, not just the one you clicked. If its number has recent texts, the number is also listed under Who is this? on Today. Groupthink reads it for that person once it is filed, which is why the extraction waits for the attach rather than running against nobody.

Limits worth knowing

• 25 conversations per import. Run it again for more.
• The 500 most recent conversations. The list shows the 500 conversations with the latest messages. An older thread is not listed, and search does not find it.
• One-to-one only. A group chat has no single person to file it to, so it is never read.
• Re-importing picks up where it left off. A second run on the same conversation sends the messages that arrived since. When there are none, it works back through older messages it had not reached yet, a batch at a time. Recent texts are sent one day at a time, so when a new message arrives, that day's earlier messages are sent again with it.
• Messages still syncing down from iCloud may not appear yet. Groupthink reads the database without disturbing it, which means a message that has not been written out yet is picked up on the next sync instead.
• Messages.app is left alone. Groupthink opens the database read only. You can keep Messages running throughout.
• Filing a conversation teaches Groupthink that number, once. The number is saved onto the contact you picked, so a later import from the same number arrives already filed. If the contact already has a number, this one is added as an extra. It is not saved if another of your contacts already has that number. An Apple ID email address is saved the same way, as an email on the contact, and the other conversations from it are filed under that person. Undo on the confirmation takes the address back off.

Keeping imported conversations up to date

Turning on Messages import means the conversations you pick keep syncing. The consent step says so: "New messages in the conversations you pick keep syncing to Groupthink until you turn that off."

On the card, Keep imported conversations up to date controls it, and it starts on, including on a Mac that imported before this shipped.

• On: "New messages in the conversations you've imported sync on their own, when Groupthink opens and every 15 minutes. Use Choose conversations to add more." The card also shows Last synced with the time of the most recent check. A check also runs shortly after your Mac wakes from sleep. If the card says "every 6 hours" instead, your desktop app is an older version that checks every six hours. Update the desktop app to get the 15-minute checks.
• Off: "Ongoing sync is off. Imported conversations stay as they are until you import them again from Choose conversations."

Adding a new conversation is still a deliberate act either way: use Choose conversations and tick it, or name the number on your iPhone or the web.

Naming a number on your iPhone or the web

When you tell Groupthink who a number is on your iPhone or the web (Who is this?, or adding a phone number to a person), your Mac brings that whole conversation in on its next sync, within 15 minutes, as if you had ticked it in Choose conversations. Naming it is the pick. Only the conversation with that exact number is read; no other conversation is picked for you. Newest texts go up first and older history follows over the next syncs. From then on it stays up to date like any conversation you imported. If this Mac has no conversation with that number, nothing is read. This needs the desktop app open with Keep imported conversations up to date on.

Turning it off

To stop one conversation and keep the rest syncing, with Keep imported conversations up to date on, untick it in Choose conversations and click Stop syncing. Notes already imported from it stay in Groupthink. Tick it again and import whenever you want it back, and it picks up where it stopped.

To stop everything, click Disconnect on the card. That stops all future reading and clears what this Mac remembers about the import, including where each conversation left off.

Conversations you already imported stay in Groupthink, because they are your record now. You can delete any of them from your notes.

If you disconnect and later turn it back on, Groupthink starts from an empty imported state and will offer you the full list again.

If the card says something else

What it says	What it means
Needs permission	Full Disk Access has not been granted yet. See Step 2.
There is no Messages history on this Mac yet	The Messages database is not there. If you use Messages on your iPhone, turn on Messages in iCloud so it syncs down.
Reading the Messages history is macOS-only	Windows has no Messages database to read.
This Mac is missing the system database tool Groupthink needs	Groupthink reads the database using a tool that ships with macOS. Contact support and we will take a look.
Sign in to Groupthink on this Mac before importing	The desktop app is not signed in. Sign in and try again.
macOS refused access to Contacts on this Mac	Full Disk Access is granted, but macOS is still refusing the address book. Conversations show as numbers. Search and the import itself both still work.
We could not read Contacts on this Mac	Groupthink could not open the address book, so conversations show as numbers. Search and the import itself both still work.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Groupthink read my texts in the background?

Only the conversations you imported and have not stopped. Those stay up to date on their own: a check runs about a minute after the desktop app opens, then every 15 minutes while it is open. The same goes for a conversation you named on your iPhone or the web, which counts as picking it. Nothing else on your Mac is read, and a conversation you have never picked or named is never read in the background. Turn it off with Keep imported conversations up to date on the card, and reading only happens when you click import.

Does Groupthink upload my whole Messages database?

No. The database is read on your Mac. Only the conversations you tick are sent, and only the messages inside them.

Does Groupthink read my contacts?

It reads the names stored on this Mac, so the conversation list shows people instead of phone numbers. Nothing about your contacts is uploaded, stored, or sent to Groupthink. The name labels the list on your own screen and goes nowhere else. Only the conversations you tick are sent. One exception: where the desktop app asks who a number is, it shows the Mac's name for it on a button. That name is sent to Groupthink only if you click the button.

What about group chats?

Group chats with 8 or fewer other people are listed under Group texts, and only the ones you tick are synced, onto the record of each person in the group who is in Groupthink. Listing a group reads its name, who is in it and when its last message arrived, not its messages. Group chats with more than 8 other people are never listed, and their messages are never read.

How does Groupthink know which contact a conversation belongs to?

By the handle. A phone number matches the number on a contact's record, in any format. An Apple ID email matches any email address on the record, including a secondary one. If nothing matches, the conversation is stored without a contact rather than filed to the wrong person. It is not stranded there: the import summary lists it with an Attach to a contact button, and filing it puts it on that person's timeline. Filing it also saves that phone number or Apple ID address onto the contact you picked, so the next conversation from the same number matches on its own. Picked the wrong person? Where Groupthink confirms the save, click Undo: the number comes off that person and goes back under Who is this? for you to name again. The name shown in the conversation list is a label read from this Mac, not a match, so it does not decide this for you.

I filed a conversation under someone weeks ago. Why did their later texts not follow?

Conversations filed before 10 September 2026 did not save the number on the person. Groupthink now saves it for you the next time Who is this? loads, files the texts that were waiting, and shows you a card listing each match with an Undo. See Numbers you filed before are matched for you.

Why is Groupthink asking me to file every conversation by hand?

Because it has few numbers to match on. Matching is by phone number, and most contacts do not have one saved yet. Add one with Add phone on a contact's page, or file a conversation to them. It gets better as you go: every conversation you file saves its number onto the contact, so the next import matches more of them on its own. See Filing a conversation to a contact.

Will importing an old conversation change when I last spoke to someone?

Yes. An imported conversation counts as an interaction and moves that contact's last interaction date to match the conversation.

I texted someone today and it has not shown up. Why?

Usually one of these:

• The next check has not run yet. Groupthink checks about a minute after the desktop app opens, then every 15 minutes. Reopening the app runs a check.
• The texts have not reached this Mac. If you text from your iPhone, Messages in iCloud has to be on for both devices.
• You never picked that conversation. Only conversations you chose are read. Add it with Choose conversations.
• Their number is not on their contact. The conversation arrived without a person. File it from Conversations, or add the number with Add phone on their page so the next one files itself.
• It was a group text. Group chats are never read.

The Groupthink iPhone app shows these conversations once the Mac has imported them. It cannot read your texts itself.

Can I do this on Windows?

No. This is macOS only, because the Messages database only exists there. On any platform you can still paste a text conversation into Capture.

Related

• Capture a Text Conversation: paste or forward a single thread, on web or desktop.
• Messages: the Messages source in Conversations and where its settings are.
• Groupthink Desktop App: downloading, installing, and signing in.
• Relationship Intelligence: where imported conversations show up.

Getting Help

Stuck on the Full Disk Access step, or a conversation that imported empty? Email support@groupthink.com.