How to get WhatsApp messages and reports into Google Sheets

WhatsApp cannot send messages to Google Sheets by itself. To get reports from WhatsApp into a sheet you can copy them by hand, export the chat as a text file and import it, send staff a Google Forms link instead, connect the WhatsApp Business API to your sheet with a developer's help, or use a ready-made service that does the conversion for you.

Which one is right depends on how many messages you get, how often you need the data, and whether your staff type or send voice notes. Here is each option, honestly.

Option 1: Copy and paste by hand

Someone opens each chat, reads each report, and types or pastes the details into the right columns of a sheet.

• Good for: two or three people sending a few reports a day.
• Cost: free, apart from the time.
• Problems: it takes longer every month as the team grows, mistakes creep in, voice notes must be played and typed out, and the sheet is always a day or two behind.

If you do this, make it easier by agreeing a fixed message format with staff, with the same order as your sheet's columns. Copying "Shiv Traders / Order / 24 / 12500 / Deliver Thursday" is far quicker than picking facts out of a paragraph.

Option 2: Export the chat and import the text file

WhatsApp lets you export any individual or group chat as a plain text file. You can import that file into Google Sheets and split it into columns. It is free and works well for a one-off job, such as pulling a month of reports from a group, but it is not something you want to do every day.

Step by step

Menu labels differ slightly between Android, iPhone and WhatsApp versions, so look for the closest match.

1. Open the chat (the group or the person's chat) on your phone.
2. Open the chat menu. On most Android phones tap the three dots, then More. On iPhone, tap the chat or group name at the top.
3. Tap Export chat and choose Without media. This keeps the file small; photos and voice notes are left out.
4. Save or send the file to yourself, for example to Google Drive or your email. On some phones it arrives as a .zip; unzip it to get the .txt file.
5. Import it into Google Sheets. Open a new sheet, use File, then Import, and upload the .txt file. Pick a separator that does not appear in the messages, such as tab, so each line lands whole in column A.
6. Split into columns. Each line usually looks like "29/09/26, 6:12 pm - Ganesh Pawar: Shiv Traders order 24 boxes". Use Data, then Split text to columns, or a formula such as =SPLIT(A1, " - ", FALSE), to separate the date and time from the rest; then split again on ": " to separate the sender from the message. iPhone exports put the date and time in square brackets instead, so adjust the separator.
7. Clean up. Delete system lines ("Ganesh added Priya", "Messages are end-to-end encrypted"), and join any message that ran onto a second line.

The date format in the export follows the phone's settings, so check whether you have DD/MM or MM/DD before you convert dates. An exported chat contains other people's messages and phone numbers; keep the file inside the business.

The limit: you still end up with one "message" column, not separate columns for customer, quantity and amount. Someone has to read each message and break it apart. And voice notes show up only as "audio omitted".

Option 3: Send a Google Forms link instead of a message

Rather than converting messages after the fact, change what staff send. Build a Google Form with the fields you need, and share the link on WhatsApp. Each response lands as a row in a linked Google Sheet automatically.

• Good for: small and mid-size teams who are comfortable typing and reading the form's language, and for occasional surveys or checklists.
• Cost: free.
• Problems: typing on a phone after a long day, no voice notes, and no built-in way to see who did not fill it in. We compare it in detail in Google Forms for field reporting.

For many small teams, this is the right answer, and it costs nothing.

Option 4: The WhatsApp Business API plus an automation

The WhatsApp Business API (also called the WhatsApp Business Platform) is Meta's official way for software to send and receive WhatsApp messages. With it, each incoming message can be passed to your own code or an automation tool, which then adds a row to Google Sheets.

• What it needs: a verified Meta business account, a phone number that is not already in use on the regular WhatsApp app, Meta's approval, and usually a developer or service provider to build and maintain the connection.
• Cost: development time, hosting, and Meta's per-message charges for some message types.
• What you still have to solve: turning free-text messages into columns, transcribing voice notes, handling typos and different languages, and telling staff when a report is incomplete.

This is the right route if you have developers and very specific needs. For most businesses it is a project, not a quick fix.

Option 5: A ready-made service

Some services are built specifically to turn WhatsApp reports into spreadsheet rows, so you get the automatic result without building it yourself. vBol is one of them, designed for field staff.

Your staff save one WhatsApp number and send it a voice note, photo or location after each job, in their own language: Marathi, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Gujarati, Bangla, Punjabi, Malayalam, Odia, Urdu or English.

vBol transcribes it, extracts the fields for your record type (customer, outcome, quantity, amount collected, next step, or whatever your company needs), and reads the record back on WhatsApp in the sender's language with buttons to confirm or fix a field. Nothing is written until they confirm. The confirmed record becomes a row in your Google Sheet, or an Excel workbook on OneDrive/SharePoint, with the photo and GPS location attached.

Every evening at 7 PM you get one WhatsApp message: what was filed, by whom, and who sent nothing. No app to install and no training for staff; Vritti sets up the record types and the destination sheet with you, and most teams file real records the same day.

vBol is free for 30 days (up to 5 confirmed reports per person per day during the trial), then ₹199 per user per month for teams of up to 100 users; bigger teams get a custom plan. See pricing, or read how to collect field reports on WhatsApp for the wider picture.