WhatsApp statistics: what the app tells you and what it doesn't

Spotify has its yearly recap, Instagram has post insights and your phone tells you how many hours you spend on it. WhatsApp, on the other hand, has no statistics screen for your chats. That doesn’t mean there are no numbers at all: there are a few, scattered around the settings. Here’s where to find them, what they really measure and what to do to get the rest.

Menu names can vary a little depending on your WhatsApp version and whether you’re on iPhone or Android.

1. Network usage: the account’s message totals

Where: Settings > Storage and data > Network usage.

This is the closest thing WhatsApp has to statistics. For the whole account, it shows:

• Messages sent and received. One overall total, not per chat or per person.
• Data used by messages, media, calls, status updates and backups.
• Calls, voice and video, and the data they used.

These counters start at zero when you install WhatsApp or when you tap Reset statistics at the bottom of the screen. Switch phones and they start over. So they don’t tell you how many messages you’ve sent “ever”, only since the last reset.

2. Manage storage: how much space each chat takes

Where: Settings > Storage and data > Manage storage.

This lists your chats by how much space they take on your phone, with the biggest files first. It’s handy for freeing up space, but as a statistic it’s misleading: photos and videos are what take up room, not messages. A group that shares lots of videos can top the list even if hardly anyone writes in it.

3. Group info: members, creation date and files

Where: open the group and tap its name at the top.

The info screen tells you:

• How many members the group has, and who the admins are.
• Who created it and when, at the bottom of the screen.
• How many media files, links and documents have been shared (the ones on your phone).

It doesn’t tell you how many messages the group has or who writes the most.

4. Message info: who has read it

Where: long-press one of your own messages and choose Info.

In a group, it shows who received it and who read it, with times. It only works on your own messages, and anyone with read receipts turned off won’t show up as having read it. Useful for one specific message, not for statistics.

What WhatsApp will never tell you

The questions a group actually asks have no answer inside the app:

• Who talks the most, and what share of the messages each person sends.
• How many messages the chat has and how many there are per day.
• What time and which weekday people write the most.
• What the busiest day in the group’s history was.
• Which emojis and words get used the most, and who sends the most voice notes.
• Who vanishes for weeks and who writes at three in the morning.

How to get those statistics

The data is there, just inside the chats. The way to get it out is to export the conversation and analyze the file:

1. Export the chat. On iPhone, tap the chat name and Export Chat; on Android, ⋮ > More > Export chat. Choose Without media. The guide to exporting a chat has all the details.
2. Analyze it. Drop the .txt or .zip into the Chat Recap analyzer. It’s worked out in your browser, without uploading the chat to any server, and it’s free.

A few seconds later you have:

What you want to know	Where you see it
Who talks the most	The podium and the participants table, with messages, share, words and average length
When people write	Charts by hour, weekday, month and year
Records	The busiest day, the longest streak of consecutive days and the longest silence
Emojis and phrases	The most used emojis, and the words and phrases repeated most
Awards	Awards like the Ghost or the Night Owl, decided by the numbers

If you want to know exactly how each figure is worked out (what counts as a message, how deleted messages and media are handled), the guide to group stats explained goes through them one by one.

Be careful with “WhatsApp statistics” apps

App stores are full of apps promising WhatsApp statistics, who viewed your profile or alerts when someone comes online. Before installing one, keep in mind:

• WhatsApp doesn’t share who views your profile. No app can know that legitimately.
• Tracking when someone is online goes against WhatsApp’s terms and the other person’s privacy.
• Don’t hand over your account. If an app asks you to log in with your number, scan a QR code as if it were WhatsApp Web, or read your notifications, it can read your chats.

An export you analyze yourself in the browser is safer: you choose which chat and when, and the file never leaves your device. The guide to analyzing a chat privately covers what to look for in any tool.