You should be able to search your Apple Messages within Apple Messages. But the built in search is awful and half-assed, so here we are.
I was unaware of the prior art "Chatology" when I wrote this, but now that I am, I've rewritten to use the same 3-pane drill-down interface it used, which is much better than my previous attempt.
Install
Download iMessage.Search.app.zip from the latest release, unzip, and drag to /Applications/.
Since the app isn't notarized with Apple, macOS will block it on first launch. To fix this, run once:
xattr -cr "/Applications/iMessage Search.app"
Building from source
This builds the Swift package and creates dist/iMessage Search.app.
Requirements
- macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later
- Full Disk Access — the app reads your Messages and Contacts databases in read-only mode. Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Full Disk Access, click +, and add iMessage Search.
- (if building from source) Xcode Command Line Tools (
xcode-select --install)
Features
- Full-text search across all messages
- Filter by contact, chat, date range, and direction (sent/received)
- Regex search (probably? idk I barely tested that bit)
- Inline image attachment previews
- Group chat support with resolved contact names