"Bad CPU Type" Error

[ashanti1fromer]

Hey all,

First of all @ReagentX amazing program, thank you!!

I'm on an old Mac - osBig Sur 11.7. I downloaded this version of your program:
[imessage-exporter-x86_64-apple-darwin.tar.gz]

after I cd into Downloads and run the following line:
./imessage-exporter -f html -m Mark -c full

I get the following error:
zsh: bad CPU type in executable: ./imessage-exporter

Happens with other queries, like -h, -v, etc

Very very limited coding skills over here, but lots and lots of gratitude to this Q&A community

[ReagentX]

Bad CPU type on macOS means one of:

1. Apple Silicon Mac trying to run an x86_64 binary without Rosetta 2 installed
2. Intel Mac trying to run an arm64 binary
3. (Pre-10.15 only) trying to run a 64-bit binary on a 32-bit-only system (not relevant here, Big Sur is 64-bit only)

Big Sur 11.7 shipped on both Intel and Apple Silicon, so 1 is the overwhelmingly likely cause. You probably have an Apple Silicon Mac, so you need to use the aarch64 build, not the x86_64 build. To confirm, if you go to Apple Menu > About This Mac:

It should tell you what you have on the Chip line:

[ashanti1fromer]

Thanks! My girl is old, 2017 with this processor: 3.1 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5

[ReagentX]

That means this is not a 32-bit CPU issue. A 2017 Intel Core i5 Mac should be x86_64, and Big Sur is 64-bit-only.

The most likely explanation is that the imessage-exporter file you are running is not actually the Intel binary.

Can you run these three commands from the same folder where you are running ./imessage-exporter and paste the output?

uname -m
file ./imessage-exporter
sw_vers

[ashanti1fromer]

Thanks again... however the i5 processor is 64 bit? Seems you're saying though I'd still have to compile via Rust? On Wednesday, May 27, 2026 at 10:03:16 PM EDT, Christopher Sardegna ***@***.***> wrote: I think that your question is addressed by #305 then. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe. Triage notifications, keep track of coding agent tasks and review pull requests on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS and Android. Download it today! You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[ReagentX]

Can you run the commands I mentioned above? That might help clarify the problem.

[ashanti1fromer]

Ah I'm sorry, that part of your message was cut off. Ran it and here's the output:

x86_64
./imessage-exporter: Mach-O 64-bit executable arm64
ProductName: macOS
ProductVersion: 11.7.10
BuildVersion: 20G1427

[ReagentX]

Thanks, that explains the issue.

Your Mac is Intel/x86_64:

uname -m
x86_64

But the binary you are running is Apple Silicon/arm64:

file ./imessage-exporter
Mach-O 64-bit executable arm64

It should read:

Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64

This indicates that the wrong archive was extracted: you are using the Apple Silicon build on your Intel Mac.