Opening an ICHAT File

The ICHAT file type is primarily associated with Apple Messages.

ICHAT	File extension: ICHAT
	File type:	chat log file

What is an ICHAT file?

ICHAT files mostly belong to Apple Messages.

Overview: If you have an ICHAT file, it stores chat history from Apple messaging services. This file is built as a property list (plist) structure that holds detailed records of conversations.

Key Details compiled by FilExt.com:

Format: The file uses a plist format. This means its data is structured in XML, which is common in Apple systems.

Primary Use: It mainly archives iMessage chat history, often referred to as the iChat message archive.

Alternative Use: A smaller group of these files use the Mac2OSX format for Apple Messages chat logs.

Access: You can open these files with a dedicated plist editor or view them using the Messages app on macOS.

FilExt.com tip: This format is specific to Apple messaging services and is optimized for storing conversation logs in a structured manner.

How to open ICHAT files

You need a suitable software like Apple Messages to open an ICHAT file. Without proper software you will receive a Windows message "How do you want to open this file?" or "Windows cannot open this file" or a similar Mac/iPhone/Android alert. If you cannot open your ICHAT file correctly, try to right-click or long-press the file. Then click "Open with" and choose an application. You can also display a ICHAT file directly in the browser:. Just drag the file onto this browser window and drop it.

Online ICHAT Text Viewer

Choose your .ichat file to analyze

or drag and drop it here

Online File Viewer

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ICHAT file format:

To view or edit ICHAT files you need to know the file format, because it determines how the data in this file is stored. The initial characters of a file are called signature, sometimes also referred to as "magic bytes". The signature can be used to infer the file format. File extension, signature and file format must match; otherwise errors will occur when the file is opened. So you need a detailed analysis of a file to find out the format and the associated program. Below is our analysis of the ICHAT files:

ICHAT is a very commonly used file extension and is mainly used by one program with a specific format. However, the following two file formats are common:

• 95% of all ICHAT files are saved iChat messages files, which are based on the plist file format. A property list file is a structured text file that contains user's settings or macOS apps configuration. These are binary files, so they do not contain words or text. Most of these files are 2 KB to 130 KB in size. This is an old file type which is rarely used today. Several words can almost always be found in the files, e.g. bplist00 and X$versionX$objectsY$archiverT$top. Files like these are sometimes connected to chat, anisha, solberg, alle, kops, lacrosse, tarik, icloud and gmail, and nearly always contain personal information.
• 3% of all ICHAT files are using the well-known Mac2OSX file format to store the data. The Mac2OSX format is an AppleDouble format and originally used to store additional metadata on Unix systems. They consist of unreadable binary data. The files are 82 bytes to 4 KB in size, with a median of 4 KB. Certain words are almost always found in the files, such as Mac OS X, com.apple.quarantine, Messages and ATTR;. Such ICHAT files store data about person-related data.

All the rest of the ICHAT files (2%) have different formats. They are often associated with tinder, drum, truffe, halal, salab, goulding, hunter, ngai or seni. If you want to find out what your ICHAT file contains, drag and drop it onto this page.