It took several weeks but I finally got my Reddit data export for my account. If it wasn't already obvious, the direct messages there are not encrypted in any meaningful way. One interesting variable I found was in the file named "statistics", there's a variable named "is_deleted" which is set to false. This makes me wonder if, when you "delete" your account, they just flip this variable to disable login but still retain all of your user data. The file names are pretty self explanatory on what they contain, but the if you're curious, the files in the export are:
account_gender.csv
approved_submitter_subreddits.csv
chat_history.csv
checkfile.csv
comment_headers.csv
comments.csv
comment_votes.csv
drafts.csv
filelist.txt
friends.csv
gilded_comments.csv
gilded_posts.csv
hidden_posts.csv
ip_logs.csv
linked_identities.csv
linked_phone_number.csv
message_headers.csv
messages.csv
moderated_subreddits.csv
multireddits.csv
poll_votes.csv
post_headers.csv
posts.csv
post_votes.csv
reddit_gold_information.csv
saved_comments.csv
saved_posts.csv
scheduled_posts.csv
statistics.csv
subscribed_subreddits.csv
twitter.csv
user_preferences.csv
I got mine today too (well, apparently it was ready yesterday, but I didn't download it until today) and I was struck that the "chat history" doesn't have all my chats in it. I was in particular looking for the exchanges I'd had with a representative of a company working on a VR headset. I guess maybe the other party deleted them. But I found at the same time that the chat widget on the site no longer has any of my chats in it. It just has a "start a new chat!" button. Super weird. The site really feels to me like it's getting more janky.
That might be expected? They just announced that chats/messages prior to January 1 2023 were nuked so you probably won't see anything prior to that date.
See the earlier posts
https://lemmy.world/post/1481089 (from !reddit@lemmy.world)
https://lemmy.ml/post/2045081 (from !reddit@lemmy.ml)
What's strange is that the articles claim a data request should still be able to get you that old data but I guess that's not entirely true.
Oh, thanks. I had totally missed that. That probably explains the widget on the site. And, as I say, it's possible the other person had deleted the chat I was looking for.