Teams Webapp Exporter

Bulk export Microsoft Teams chats to Markdown files via Playwright browser automation - for when API access is not an option.

Based on microsoft-teams-chat-extractor by Ingo Muschenetz. Rewritten as a Playwright-based CLI for automated bulk export with incremental sync, quick-check optimization, and scroll cutoff.

Features

• Bulk export — exports all chats (1:1, group, meetings) in one run
• Incremental sync — only downloads new messages since last export
• Quick-check — skips unchanged chats without full DOM extraction
• Scroll cutoff — stops scrolling when it reaches already-exported messages
• Hidden chat discovery — finds chats hidden from the Teams sidebar via internal API
• Retention analysis — reports chat age distribution and sidebar visibility window

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v18+)
• Google Chrome launched with remote debugging enabled

Launch Chrome for debugging

Chrome must be started with three flags. Pick the command for your OS:

macOS:

/Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome \
  --remote-debugging-port=9222 \
  --remote-allow-origins='*' \
  --user-data-dir="$HOME/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome-Debug" &

Linux:

google-chrome \
  --remote-debugging-port=9222 \
  --remote-allow-origins='*' \
  --user-data-dir="$HOME/.config/google-chrome-debug" &

Windows (PowerShell):

& "C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" `
  --remote-debugging-port=9222 `
  --remote-allow-origins=* `
  --user-data-dir="$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Google\Chrome-Debug"

Then navigate to https://teams.microsoft.com and sign in.

Note: --user-data-dir must point to a separate profile directory — Chrome refuses to enable DevTools on the default profile. On macOS/zsh, the --remote-allow-origins='*' flag must be quoted.

Installation

git clone <this-repo>
cd teams-webapp-exporter
npm install

Usage

npx tsx export-all.ts [options]

Options

Flag	Default	Description
--days <n>	0 (all)	How far back to scroll per chat (0 = full history)
--output <dir>	./output	Target directory for Markdown files
--chat <name>	—	Export only chats matching this substring
--dry-run	false	List all chats without exporting
--port <n>	9222	Chrome remote debugging port
--timeout <s>	120	Per-chat extraction timeout in seconds
--scroll-down	false	Scroll down from current position instead of up
--region <r>	emea	Teams chatsvc API region (emea, amer, apac)
--user <name>	auto-detect	Your display name (for resolving 1:1 chat names)
--resume	false	Resume from last checkpoint if interrupted

Examples

List all chats without exporting:

npx tsx export-all.ts --dry-run

Export all chats from the last 30 days:

npx tsx export-all.ts --days 30

Export a specific chat:

npx tsx export-all.ts --chat "Project Updates"

Export to a custom directory with a different region:

npx tsx export-all.ts --output ./exports --region amer

How incremental export works

Each Markdown file ends with a <!-- last-message: ... --> comment containing the timestamp of the newest exported message. On subsequent runs:

1. Quick-check — reads the newest visible DOM timestamp and compares it to the file marker. If unchanged, the chat is skipped entirely (no scrolling).
2. Scroll cutoff — if new messages exist, scrolling stops when it reaches the last-exported timestamp instead of loading full history.
3. Append — only new messages are appended to the existing file with a separator.

Output format

Each chat produces a Markdown file named after the chat (sanitized). Messages are grouped by date with author headers:

# Chat Name

Exported: 2026-02-13T15:00:00.000Z

## Thursday, 13 February 2026

**Alice** [2026-02-13T09:15:00Z]:
Good morning! Here's the update...

**Bob** [2026-02-13T09:20:00Z]:
Thanks, looks good.

Testing & Linting

npm test          # Run all tests (Vitest)
npm run lint      # Run ESLint

53 tests across 4 modules: message extraction, Markdown conversion, retention analysis, and Graph API chat discovery. Tests use temp directories for file I/O and mock fetch for API calls — no network or browser needed.

SBOM

A CycloneDX Software Bill of Materials is included at sbom.cdx.json covering production dependencies only. Regenerate after dependency changes:

npm run sbom

License

MIT — see LICENSE. Original work copyright (c) 2021-2026 Ingo Muschenetz.