How do I screenshot a whole chat, not just one screen?

Open the chat in the platform's web app and click Capture page snapshot with all switches off. ProofSnap jumps to the newest message, scrolls upward by itself and stitches one tall screenshot, so you do not need to scroll the chat up first. If you need a passage further back than the capture reaches, scroll to it and switch on Capture visible area only.

What is in the evidence package besides the screenshot?

The ZIP also holds evidence.pdf, page.html, domtextcontent.txt, metadata.json, the forensic log, chain_of_custody.json and manifest.json, which lists the SHA-256 hash of every file and is signed with RSA-4096. An OpenTimestamps proof is added on every plan except Essential (where a paid eIDAS or Video credit adds it), and an eIDAS qualified timestamp when your plan or credits include it. The recipient can check the package with the free Trust Verifier.

What if the messages have already been deleted?

ProofSnap captures what the web app shows at the moment you click, so a message that is gone from the conversation can no longer be captured. Capture as soon as you see something you may need. For content that has already disappeared, the guide on how to preserve social media evidence covers the other routes.

Can I capture a chat from the WhatsApp phone app?

Not directly: ProofSnap is a browser extension. Link your phone to WhatsApp Web (on the phone, Linked devices, then Link a device, and scan the QR code on web.whatsapp.com), open the chat there and capture it in the browser.

Are voice messages and videos inside the chat captured?

The screenshot shows them as they appear in the chat. To keep the sound, play them during a video recording with the 75 min + audio option of a Video SnapPack.

Why does Chrome say ProofSnap started debugging this browser?

On LinkedIn profiles, LinkedIn company pages and Google Analytics, ProofSnap captures the page in a single shot through the browser debugger. The bar is Chrome's standard notice for that. The same bar appears when you switch on forensic mode.

Can I capture Instagram, X, TikTok or Reddit?

Yes. These sites, like any other web page, are captured with the standard method, which scrolls the whole page and stitches it. The 13 platforms on this page get extra handling only because their layout would otherwise get in the way.

Capture Whole Chats and Social Posts as Evidence

Step 1

Open the chat in the browser and open ProofSnap

ProofSnap captures what the browser shows. Open the conversation in the platform's web version in Chrome or Edge, not in the phone app or a desktop app, and make that tab the active one. Then click the ProofSnap icon to open the side panel.

1The web app. For example web.whatsapp.com, web.telegram.org, discord.com, Slack in the browser or messenger.com. Sign in as you normally do.
2ProofSnap icon. Opens the side panel. If you do not see it, open the puzzle-piece menu (Extensions) and pin ProofSnap.
3The right conversation. Open the chat, channel, post or profile you need, so that it fills the page. ProofSnap captures the conversation that is open, not the whole account.
4Available captures. How many captures are left on your plan this month.

Step 2

Whole conversation or just the screen

With all switches off, ProofSnap scrolls through the conversation by itself and stitches one tall screenshot. You do not need to scroll.

1Capture page snapshot. Starts capturing the active tab.
2Capture visible area only. Switch it on when you need exactly the part that is on your screen, for example a few messages in the middle of a long chat: scroll to them first, then capture. Nothing is scrolled and the page is not reloaded.
3Record capture video. Adds a screen recording of the capture. To keep a voice message or a video inside the chat with its sound, use the 75 min + audio option of a Video SnapPack (see how to record video evidence).

Default state: all switches are off, so the whole conversation is captured.

Step 3

Click Capture page snapshot and leave the tab alone

Do not scroll, type or switch tabs until the button is blue again. ProofSnap is scrolling through the conversation on its own and capturing it screen by screen.

1Refreshing page... On most sites, including Telegram, Discord, Slack, Messenger, LinkedIn and YouTube, ProofSnap reloads the page first so that the package records the server's fresh response headers. WhatsApp Web, Facebook, Airbnb and the AI chats are not reloaded, so whatever you have open on screen stays as it is.
2Capturing... Scrolling, screenshots, HTML, text, metadata, the evidence document, the signed manifest and the timestamps. A long chat takes longer than a short one.

1

Refreshing page...

Capture visible area only

Record capture video (up to 10 min)

2

Capturing...

Capture visible area only

Record capture video (up to 10 min)

Top of the capture area. On apps that are not reloaded, the button goes straight to Capturing...

Step 4

Download the evidence package

A table of files and a Download zip file button appear. Open evidence.pdf or screenshot.jpeg from the table to check that the right conversation is in it, then save the ZIP.

1File table. Each file can be downloaded on its own for a quick look.
2Download now. The package exists only in your browser until you download it. Closing the side panel deletes it.
3Download zip file. This ZIP is your evidence. Keep it exactly as downloaded.

Lower part of the capture area after a capture. Professional plan with eIDAS SnapPack credits, eIDAS off, no video, forensic mode off.

File	Description	Action
evidence.pdf	Evidence document
provenance_certificate.pdf	Provenance Certificate
screenshot.jpeg	Screenshot
c2pa.json	C2PA Content Credentials
page.html	HTML content
page.mhtml	MHTML page archive
domtextcontent.txt	Text content
metadata.json	Metadata
forensic_log.json	Forensic Log (ISO 27037)
chain_of_custody.json	Chain of Custody
manifest.json	List of files & hashes
manifest.sig	Manifest signature
publickey.pem	Public key
manifest.json.ots	OpenTimestamps
forensic_log_summary.txt	Forensic log summary

How ProofSnap captures each of the 13 platforms
Platform	How ProofSnap captures it	Page reloaded
WhatsApp Web	Newest message first, then upward, up to 5 screen heights	No
Telegram Web, Discord, Slack	Newest message first, then upward, up to 15 screen heights	Yes
Messenger	Loads older messages, then upward, up to 15 screen heights	Yes
Facebook post	The open post dialog, See more expanded, up to 100 reply and comment clicks	No
LinkedIn profile or company page	Collapsed sections expanded, then a single shot through the browser debugger	Yes
YouTube video or channel	Description, comments and replies loaded for up to 45 seconds, exact video details added to the PDF	Yes
ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini	The conversation pane, top to bottom, up to 50 screens	No
Airbnb messages	List, messages and reservation in one image, upward, up to 15 screen heights	No
Google Analytics	A single shot through the browser debugger	Yes

Platforms 1 of 4

Messaging apps: WhatsApp Web, Telegram, Discord, Slack, Messenger

ProofSnap recognizes these five apps by their address and scrolls the conversation pane instead of the page. All you do is open the chat; there is nothing else to prepare.

1Starts at the newest message. ProofSnap jumps to the bottom of the conversation first, whatever part you were looking at.
2Works upward. It moves up one screen at a time, with an overlap, and stitches the screens into one image. How far back it goes depends on the app (see the table).
3Chat list included. The screenshot is cropped to the app's chat area, usually with the chat list beside the conversation. Whatever the list shows is in the picture.
4Capturing... Leave the tab alone until the button is blue again.

App

Address

Reloaded

How far back

WhatsApp Web

web.whatsapp.com

Reloaded: No

Up to 5 screen heights

Telegram Web

web.telegram.org

Reloaded: Yes

Up to 15 screen heights

Discord

discord.com

Reloaded: Yes

Up to 15 screen heights

Slack

Slack in the browser

Reloaded: Yes

Up to 15 screen heights

Messenger

www.messenger.com

Reloaded: Yes

Loads older messages first, then up to 15 screen heights

A screen height is the height of the conversation pane in your browser window. A taller window means more messages per screen. For a passage further back than the capture reaches, scroll to it and use Capture visible area only, one capture per screen.

Platforms 2 of 4

Social posts and profiles: Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube

Posts and profiles are captured as pages, top to bottom. Three platforms get extra help because their content is collapsed or loaded only while you scroll.

Facebook: open the post in its dialog

1The post dialog. Open the post so that it shows in its own window over the feed. When such a dialog is open, ProofSnap captures the dialog, not the feed behind it. If no dialog is open, ProofSnap captures the page as usual.
2See more. Truncated text in the dialog is expanded.
3View replies, View more comments. ProofSnap scrolls the dialog to load the comments, recognizes these links in many interface languages and clicks them, up to 100 clicks per capture, then captures the dialog from the top down.
4No reload. Facebook is never reloaded, so the open dialog stays open.

LinkedIn: profiles and company pages

1Chrome's debugging bar. For profiles (/in/) and company pages (/company/) ProofSnap captures the whole page in a single shot through the browser debugger, so LinkedIn's sticky bars are not repeated. Chrome shows this bar while it works. Leave it alone; it disappears when the capture ends.
2see more. Collapsed sections such as About and Experience descriptions are expanded first, in up to three passes, and sections that load only as you scroll are loaded.
3Show all. These links open a separate page, so ProofSnap does not click them. Open that page and capture it separately if you need the full list.
4Capturing... Profiles and company pages are reloaded before the capture.

YouTube: video pages and channels

On a video page (youtube.com/watch) ProofSnap expands the description, loads the comments and opens the replies before it captures. On a channel page it scrolls to load more of the video listing. This pass takes up to 45 seconds. YouTube is reloaded before the capture.

1Video details as published by the platform. Added to the evidence document for a video page: the video and channel identifiers, the exact publication date and the exact view and like counts, whereas the page itself shows a relative age and rounded numbers.
2Platform notes for this capture. Added for video and channel pages. They explain to the reader, among other things, that the comment count shown above the comments is not a reliable total and that comments load in batches.

The screenshot shows the page, not the moving video. To capture the video while it plays, record it (see how to record video evidence).

1

Video details as published by the platform

Title as published: How we fixed the roof in one weekend

Video identifier: a1B2c3D4e5F

Channel: Example Builders

Channel identifier: UCx0Example0Channel00000

Publication date: 2026-09-30T08:00:12-07:00

Duration: PT12M4S

Exact view count: 1204377

Exact like count: 18902

Category: Howto & Style

2

Platform notes for this capture

Simplified part of evidence.pdf for a video page. Values are examples, printed in the form the page carries them.

Platforms 3 of 4

AI chats: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini

Open the conversation (on Gemini, a chat under gemini.google.com/app) and capture. These pages are not reloaded, so the conversation is captured as it is on your screen.

1Only the conversation pane. In these apps the window itself does not scroll; the conversation does. The screenshot is that pane scrolled through and stitched, and chain_of_custody.json records which pane was captured.
2Top to bottom. ProofSnap scrolls the pane from the top down, up to 50 screens. Fixed bars appear only once instead of on every screen.
3The list of chats. Not in the screenshot, but its text is in page.html and domtextcontent.txt.
4Capturing... Starts right away, without a reload.

ChatGPT and Claude keep only the messages near the visible area loaded in the page at any one time. The screenshot shows them all, because it is stitched while scrolling, but page.html and the text file hold only the messages loaded at one moment. chain_of_custody.json says so for these two platforms. If a conversation is longer than 50 screens, the evidence document notes that the capture may be incomplete and chain_of_custody.json records how far it got.

Platforms 4 of 4

Booking inbox and analytics: Airbnb, Google Analytics

Two more web apps keep their content in panes of their own, and ProofSnap handles them the same way.

Airbnb messages

1Three panels in one image. Open the conversation in the Airbnb inbox. The screenshot covers the conversation list, the messages and the reservation details together.
2Newest first, then upward. As with the messaging apps, ProofSnap starts at the newest message and works upward, up to 15 screen heights.
3Reservation details. The right panel is captured as it is on your screen.
4No reload. Airbnb pages are never reloaded.

Google Analytics

Open the report with the date range and filters you need. ProofSnap captures it in a single shot through the browser debugger, so the top bar and the left menu appear once rather than on every screen. Chrome shows its debugging bar while it works, as with LinkedIn above.

Every other site

X, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, forums and any other page are captured with the standard method. ProofSnap scrolls the whole page, hides cookie banners and pop-ups and keeps sticky headers from repeating. It records each of these changes in chain_of_custody.json. See How to capture a web page.

Built-in chat export or a ProofSnap capture?

Most chat platforms can export your data, and that export is worth keeping. Telegram, for example, announced its export tool on August 27, 2018, with the words: you'll get all your data accessible offline in JSON-format or in beautifully formatted HTML (Telegram blog). An export is the platform's data file, though, not a record of what the conversation looked like on screen. A ProofSnap capture adds that view: the stitched screenshot, the page HTML, the text and the metadata, each hashed with SHA-256 in a manifest signed with RSA-4096, so any later change to a file can be detected.

Built-in chat exports by platform
Platform	Built-in export
WhatsApp	Export chat in the app, as a text file with or without media
Telegram	Export chat history in Telegram Desktop, as JSON or HTML
Slack	Workspace export from the workspace settings, message history as JSON; what it covers depends on the Slack plan
Discord	Request data under Data & Privacy, for your whole account, which can take up to 30 days
ChatGPT	Export data under Settings, Data controls, delivered as an emailed download link

For more on chats as evidence, see how to seal a chat export as evidence and how to print a WhatsApp chat for court.

What each file in a ProofSnap package proves is explained in how to read an evidence package.

Common questions

Save the conversation before it disappears

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More guides: How to capture a web page · Long video evidence · All guides

Capture chats and social media as evidence

Before you start

Open the chat in the browser and open ProofSnap

Whole conversation or just the screen

Click Capture page snapshot and leave the tab alone

Download the evidence package

What is different on each platform

Messaging apps: WhatsApp Web, Telegram, Discord, Slack, Messenger

AI chats: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini

Booking inbox and analytics: Airbnb, Google Analytics

Airbnb messages

Google Analytics

Every other site

Built-in chat export or a ProofSnap capture?

Common questions

Save the conversation before it disappears