If you want to back up your text messages for record keeping or if you’re getting a new iPhone and want your text messages restored on your new device, here’s how to back up iPhone text messages.
Your iPhone consists of two types of text messages. There is iMessage, which is used when both you and the recipient have iPhones and messages are sent over WiFi or a data connection. There are also SMS text messages, which is the traditional method used by all phones and used on iPhone when the recipient does not have an iPhone.
You can learn more about the difference between the two in this guide, but if you want to back up all those messages, there are some easy ways to do it. Perhaps the easiest way is to make an iTunes backup of your iPhone, or you can back up to iCloud directly on your device.
At this point, you have your text messages backed up and stored on your Mac or PC. However, some users like to back up their text messages for record keeping purposes, so there are ways to back up your iPhone and then view the backed up text message files in .PDF format.
In any case, here’s how to backup your iPhone text messages and view them anytime without being on your iPhone.
Backup Using iTunes or iCloud
When you back up your iPhone via iTunes or iCloud, your text messages are also backed up. Here’s how to backup your iPhone using iTunes.
To backup your iPhone using iCloud directly on your device, follow these simple steps:
View Backed Up Text Messages
To view backed up text messages from your iPhone, you need to back them up to your computer via iTunes, as backup via iCloud won’t let you view them.
After backing up your iPhone to your computer, you can view your backed up text messages using third-party software. iExplorer It’s the easiest software we’ve used to view your backed up text messages.
Plug in your iPhone and open iExplorer to view your backed up text messages in iExplorer. From there, follow these steps:
This is especially great for record keeping purposes and iExplorer even lets you export a conversation thread using plain text, .CSV or .PDF. To do this, click towards the upper right corner of the window and then select your option.
