Group Chat Messages as Evidence: What Counts and How to Save Them
Reviewed by Jacob Reed, founder of Verity ·
Short answer
Group chats can matter in a custody case: a co-parent's messages in a family or school-parent group, a threat made in front of others, friends or relatives piling on. Export the whole group conversation, not just the lines you need, because who said what in reply to whom is the point. Other members' messages are about them too, so share only what the case needs. Verity reads WhatsApp and GroupMe group exports and asks whose messages to check; from iPhone and Android text backups it reads one-to-one conversations and says how many group texts it left out.
A message sent to a group is still a message someone chose to send, with witnesses built in.
What group chats can show
- How a co-parent talks about you, or the children, in front of other people.
- Plans and promises made in a family group, such as who picks up whom and when.
- Others joining in against you; see triangulation in co-parenting texts.
- Threats made with an audience, which other members also saw.
How to save a group chat
- WhatsApp: export the group like any chat (see exporting WhatsApp messages).
- GroupMe: download your data; every group comes in it (see exporting GroupMe messages).
- iPhone and Android group texts: screenshot the group in order with names and dates in view. Verity's readers of iPhone message databases and Android backups currently read one-to-one conversations only.
- Keep the member list too: who was in the group, and when people joined or left.
Other members' privacy
Everyone else in the group wrote their messages for that group. Share the group with your lawyer and the court, not online, and point to the messages that matter rather than circulating the whole thing. What other people said can also raise hearsay questions in court; see are text messages hearsay?
Checking a group chat with Verity
Drop in a WhatsApp or GroupMe group export and Verity asks whose messages to check, then numbers every message in date order and flags patterns in that person's messages, each shown with the messages around it. The file is read in your browser and is not uploaded.
This is general information, not legal advice. If you are in danger, call 911; the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788.
See who said what, in order
Try the sample first, or drop in your group export. It is read in your browser and is not uploaded.