Initialization vectors: Finding Discord chats in OS X

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Finding Discord chats in OS X

After much searching the Discord cache folder is located here:

/Users/myusername/library/Application Support/discord

The cache folder follows the same file structure as the one found in Windows.

Discord cache folder in OS X

The following links will explain how to extract the json chat objects and how to convert them to html or xls files using a Python script. Although written originally for objects found in Windows the extraction and conversions steps apply all the same.

Extraction of json objects:

Discord json chats conversion to html or xls.

As background on how I located the correct folder I took the following steps:
  1. Created a virtual OS X using Virtual Box. Virtual storage was VDMK format.
  2. Installed the Discord program.
  3. Logged in to my test account. The chats were synchronized from the ones in Discord servers.
  4. Turned off the virtual machine. Created a snapshot.
  5. Tried to process the snapshot with Autopsy. Wouldn't take it.
  6. Made a clone of the machine in order to consolidate the snapshot and the image into one. Autopsy still wouldn't take it.
  7. Installed Qemu. Converted the VMDK to RAW using the following command:

    quemu-img.exe convert -f vmdk 'J:\my-clone-mac-disk.vmdk' -O raw my-mac-disk.raw
  8. Processed the raw file with Autopsy. In the keyword search section I added some of my test chats content and some other obvious terms like 'discord'.
  9. Looked at the keyword search results. These lead me to the proper folder location described above.
At the end of the day I not only found what I was looking for but also learned about OS X folder structures and how to manipulate virtual machines. Everything you do is an opportunity to learn and share with others.