How can I export SMS text messages from my iPhone?
- Get
/var/mobile/Library/SMS/sms.db - It is now exported.
What format do you want the export to be? The existing format is sqlite, so you can convert it to ASCII like so: sqlite3 sms.db .dump > sms.db.txt
For step one, you can jailbreak and then scp, or you can just search your backup folder for the file, no jailbreak required.
If your phone is not jailbroken, look on OS X in:
~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/<long_hex_string>/
And, in my case, and according to various web sources, although not in all cases, is named:
3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d28
To answer your other questions: Any OS, Free, Successful.
AllYourTexts - free - Windows
Full disclosure: I'm the author.
- Allows you to view SMS and MMS data from your PC
- Supports exporting to plaintext or HTML files.
- Shows you graph visualizations of your texting behavior over time.
I was looking for a solution to this myself and I was unhappy with the 3rd party offerings. I felt like they were overpriced or poorly designed, so I wrote my own.
I rely on PhoneView which you correctly note is a Mac OS X only paid solution.
It has always been updated very quickly by the developers each time a new iOS is released. I even received support several times for pre-release / beta versions of iOS and iTunes. Support emails are promptly answered and I have twice received custom builds from them to resolve issues using their product with pre-release iOS versions to assist me in managing the devices I use for iOS development.
I've used PhoneView to save data from a phone that iTunes said was broken and could only be erased and then restored. It's been a reliable swiss army knife for me filling in many gaps that iTunes and Xcode leave for managing iOS devices.
I'm on windows and I bought Decipher Text Message (Mac $7, Windows $10). It did the trick for my needs and backed up all my work sms messages from my iphone. My girlfriend uses it too however, she is on a mac. The cool thing is that the program also saved my sms images, which I hadn't even expected. Has anyone tried any of the other tools?? Curious about them.