Dates format in Message's chat.db

Question

I'm working on improving my iMessages backup-script. /Users/Kyro/Library/Messages/chat.db has a table message with all the messages an some dates.

Any idea what's the date format ? I first thought of a timestamp (I have for example 408978598) but date -r 408978598 return a date in 1982.

Answer 1

I found that as of High Sierra, I needed to use a different date transformation. The 8 extra 0's on the date field versus the date_read field was the clue:

datetime(message.date/1000000000 + strftime("%s", "2001-01-01") ,"unixepoch","localtime") 

Answer 2

To add on to @Matthieu's helpful answer, here's how to convert it within SQLLite:

datetime(date + strftime('%s','2001-01-01'), 'unixepoch')

For example:

select
  is_from_me,
  datetime(date + strftime('%s','2001-01-01'), 'unixepoch') as date_utc,
  text
from message;

Answer 3

well using coreUtils date :

I found what I was looking for :

$gdate -ud "2001-01-01 + 408978598 seconds" 
Tue Dec 17 13:09:58 UTC 2013

It's a timestamp with base date January 1st, 2001.

Answer 4

In the script you are referring to, you can achieve timestamping like so: datetime(date + strftime('%s', '2001-01-01 00:00:00'), 'unixepoch', 'localtime') as date from message--to get in in local time if that's what you are looking for.