If you know the iMessage account of your contact here is [a bash script of mine][1] to retrieve text + images. #Parameter is a iMessage account (email or phone number i.e. +33616.... ) if [ $# -lt 1 ]; then echo "Enter a iMessage account (email of phone number i.e +33616.....) " fi login=$1 #Retrieve the text messages sqlite3 ~/Library/Messages/chat.db " select is_from_me,text from message where handle_id=( select handle_id from chat_handle_join where chat_id=( select ROWID from chat where guid='iMessage;-;$1') )" | sed 's/1\|/me: /g;s/0\|/budy: /g' > MessageBackup.txt #Retrieve the attached stored in the local cache sqlite3 ~/Library/Messages/chat.db " select filename from attachment where rowid in ( select attachment_id from message_attachment_join where message_id in ( select rowid from message where cache_has_attachments=1 and handle_id=( select handle_id from chat_handle_join where chat_id=( select ROWID from chat where guid='iMessage;-;$1') )))" | cut -c 2- | awk -v home=$HOME '{print home $0}' | tr '\n' '\0' | xargs -0 -t -I fname cp fname . [1]: https://github.com/kyro38/MiscStuff/blob/master/OSXStuff/iMessageBackup.sh