If you just want to save text messages for sentimental purposes, you can easily save them right from your iPhone or Mac Messages app. To save them for legal purposes, you may need to display the date and time the messages were sent, which requires third-party software. In this article, we’ll go over the pros and cons of each method and explain how to save messages directly from your iPhone and Mac Messages app and using third-party software.
Related: How to Recover Deleted Text Messages on iPhone
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Can you save text messages on iPhone?
Yes, but there are limitations to saving text messages directly from your iPhone Messages app. When you record text conversations from your iPhone Messages app, the text content of the messages is saved, but not the date and time the messages were sent. In addition, you will have to manually select each text message you want to save, which is not ideal if you want to export a lot of texts over a long period of time. With the Messages app on your Mac, you can save an entire text conversation as a PDF (without selecting each message), but it still won’t have the date and time when the messages were sent. This is great if you’re recording posts for sentimental purposes, but if you need to record texts for legal documentation with time stamps, you’ll need to use third-party software, such as iMazing.
How to save text messages on iPhone
This simple method is ideal for recording necessary information, such as dates of important events or a kind message from a friend. However, it is important to note that this option only saves the textual content of a message, which means it will lose its formatting and the message timestamp. Also, it requires you to manually select each text to save. So if you are looking to record a large number of posts at once or if you are recording texts for legal documentation where the timestamp is needed, I recommend that you skip to the section below. Here’s how to record text messages:
- Open the Messaging app.
- Tap to open the text conversation with the messages you want to save.
- Press and hold any of the text messages you want to save.
- Faucet Suite.
- Tap each text message you want to save. (The blue bubble next to a message indicates that it is selected.)
- Press the Transfer icon.
- Enter at least one recipient name, phone number, or email address.
- Press the Send icon.
The textual content of the selected messages will then be sent to the designated phone number or email address. If you want a hard copy of your text conversations, I also recommend checking out how to print text messages.
How to Save Text Messages as PDF on Mac
When you save text messages as PDF from your Mac Messages app, the text format and content will be preserved, showing the speech bubble for each text in the conversation. However, it will not display the date the SMS was sent. Here’s how to save text messages to a PDF file from your Mac:
- Open the Messaging app on your Mac.
- Click on the text conversation you want to record.
- Click on To file.
- To select To print.
- Click the drop-down menu next to the file type.
- To select Save as PDF.
- Select the folder where you want to save the PDF.
- Click on To safeguard.
You will now have a PDF saved with your conversation texts and images. For more tips on the features of your iPhone or Apple device, consider subscribing to our Tip of the day. Otherwise, read on to learn how to export texts with timestamps.
Save text messages with time stamp (for legal purposes)
If you need to save a few messages with timestamps, your best (and easiest) option is to simply take a screenshot, which can then be emailed or printed. But if you have a lot of text messages to save over a long period of time, taking screenshots and pasting every image into a document is incredibly inconvenient. For this, I recommend the iMazing software. If you have more than 25 messages to export, you will need to purchase the software license, which is $ 34.99. I chose this software for several reasons: it is well rated online and has a solid website with tutorials if you have any questions specific to your situation. It’s also incredibly easy to use and took me less than five minutes to install the software and export the necessary text messages.
Important note: While there is free software available online that claims to do the same thing, be extremely careful before installing any of these options. Since you are giving this software access to your iPhone backups and data, you will need to do some thorough research to make sure that you are not downloading malware.
If you don’t have a recent backup of your iPhone text messages, go ahead and back up your iPhone to your computer. Then follow the steps below to install the software and export your conversations:
- Go to iMazing.com.
- To select Free download to download the software.
- Double click on the .dmg file in your Downloads folder to install the application.
- Click it iMazing icon and drag it to your Applications folder to start the installation.
- Click on Continue the test if you have less than 25 messages to forward. Otherwise, you’ll want to purchase a license for a device.
- A list of your backups will appear. Select the backup containing the messages you want to save or print.
- Click it Messages icon (or other messaging application).
- To print an SMS conversation, select To print.
- To save an SMS conversation in PDF format, select Export to PDF.
- Select if you want Export all messages in the chat Where Export only selected messages.
- Click on Following.
- Click on To choose to confirm and save your PDF file.
That’s all we can say about it! If you saved a PDF of your conversation, you can email it or print it as needed.
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