Print text messages from your iPhone, or file them as a PDF

You need Apple’s own software to make the backup: either the Apple Devices app from the Microsoft Store (recommended) or iTunes. ChatExport does not replace it; it reads the backup afterwards. If ChatExport cannot find Apple’s software or a backup, it walks you through the exact next step.

Plug the iPhone into the PC, open Apple Devices, trust the computer when the phone asks, and choose Back Up Now. It takes a few minutes to a few hours depending on how much is on the phone. ChatExport shows the same instructions on screen, and it can also open Apple Devices for you.

Only while the backup is being made. After that the phone can go back in your pocket. ChatExport works from the backup folder on your PC, with the phone nowhere near it.

No. ChatExport never signs in to anything. It reads a folder of files that Apple’s software already wrote to your own disk. The only password it can ever ask for is the one you set on an encrypted backup, and that one is used on your machine and then forgotten.

The backup is the big one: budget roughly as much as is used on the phone, so 64 GB of photos means about 64 GB on the PC. The export itself is small, a few megabytes for a normal conversation. ChatExport checks the free space before a backup starts and warns you if it looks tight.

Backups from iOS 11 up to the current release. ChatExport detects the database layout of each iOS version and adapts, which is why old backups from a phone you no longer own still open.

Yes, where a backup of that phone exists, and this is one of the commoner reasons people use ChatExport. A backup made years ago on a PC opens normally, long after the phone itself is gone. If the phone is still here and somebody knows the passcode, make a backup from it first and export afterwards. Two limits nobody gets around: a phone nobody can unlock cannot be backed up at all, and a backup encrypted with a password nobody remembers cannot be read, by this program or any other. Whether you are entitled to do it is a question about the estate, not about software.

Yes. Windows 10 and Windows 11, 64-bit. There is no Windows 7 or 32-bit build and there will not be one.

Not yet. Windows came first on purpose: Macs already have the Messages app, and Windows users with an iPhone are the ones with no good option. macOS is on the roadmap.

Yes. iMessage, SMS and MMS all come out in the same document, in one thread, in the order they were sent, exactly as they appear on the phone.

Yes. Plain SMS and MMS are exported exactly like iMessage, including from old backups made years ago on a phone you have since replaced.

Yes, where iOS stores them locally, which means iOS 18 and later. SMS, MMS and iMessage work on every supported version.

Yes, with the group name and every participant listed on the title page, and each message attributed to whoever sent it.

Yes, in place in the conversation, at small, medium or large. iPhone HEIC photos are converted so they display in every PDF reader rather than showing as a broken box. You can also switch photos off, which makes the file much smaller.

They are listed where they were sent, with the file name, the size and the time, and they can be collected in an index at the end of the document. They are not embedded: a PDF cannot play a video, and pretending otherwise would make the document look complete when it is not.

Yes, in colour. The emoji artwork is bundled inside the app, so a 🙂 looks the same on every machine instead of turning into a black square or an empty box, which is what happens when a PDF depends on a font the reader does not have.

Yes. Tapback reactions are printed under the message they were attached to, and a reply says which message it was a reply to. In an argument the reply structure is often the entire meaning.

Yes, and this is one of the reasons the program exists. iOS keeps earlier versions of an edited message, and with "Show edit history" switched on the document prints them under the current wording with the time of the edit. Most tools can only print the word "edited".

It can recover messages that are still in the Recently Deleted store, which on iOS 16 and later means roughly the last 30 days. Those are clearly labelled in the document, with the date they were deleted. Anything older than that window is genuinely gone from the phone and no software can bring it back. Finding out costs nothing: the export screen counts how many your own backup still holds for the conversation you picked, and that count is not limited in the free trial.

The words are gone from both phones and nobody can recover them. What remains is the record that a message was sent at that minute and then withdrawn, and the document says exactly that rather than quietly skipping the line.

Names, taken from the address book inside the backup itself, so the document says "Anna Kowalski" rather than a number nobody recognises. Court View additionally prints the number next to the name, because in evidence the number is the identifier.

Whichever of fourteen you pick, and it is a separate choice from the language of the program itself. English, Polish, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal), Czech, Romanian, Swedish, Ukrainian and Russian. The choice covers the whole frame of the document: the title page, the integrity statement, the description of what was exported, the statistics and the way dates are written. Your messages are not translated. They appear exactly as they were sent, in whatever language they were sent in.

Yes, by date range, and the screen tells you how many messages fall inside the range before you export. Think twice before narrowing it: a selective export is the first thing the other side attacks.

Not yet. Today it is one conversation per export. Batch export is planned. In practice most people need one thread, and doing them one at a time keeps each document about one relationship.

WhatsApp yes, the other two no. WhatsApp can write a conversation out to a file: open the chat, tap its name, choose Export chat. ChatExport reads that file and gives you the same PDF, TXT, HTML and CSV as an iPhone backup does, with the same search, the same date range and the same photos in place. Messenger, Signal and Telegram have no equivalent this program can read, and each of them properly is its own piece of work.

Yes, and it is the one part of ChatExport that does not need an iPhone at all. The export file is written by WhatsApp rather than by the phone, so an Android export opens exactly like an iPhone one. No backup, no Apple software, no cable. Everything else in the program still reads an iPhone backup, so if you also need your SMS, that part needs an iPhone.

Four things, and the document says so instead of leaving you to be told by the other side. It records that a message was edited or deleted but never when, so those messages are marked and carry no invented time. It has no delivery or read receipts, no reactions and no reply threading, because WhatsApp does not write them into the file. It carries no time zone, so the clock times are read as this computer’s zone and the document names that zone. And the file is a transcript WhatsApp produced on request, not a database lifted off the phone, which is why the title page prints the file’s name and its SHA256: the document says where it came from rather than implying a phone was read.

WhatsApp asks whether to attach media, and the text-only option replaces every picture with a line like “image omitted”. ChatExport prints those lines exactly as WhatsApp wrote them rather than inventing a picture. Export the chat again and choose to attach the media. WhatsApp also caps how much it will attach, so on a long conversation some of the older files can be left out; the import screen counts how many arrived and how many are named but missing, before you export anything.

No. It exports conversations. Call logs, contact lists, photo libraries and app data are deliberately out of scope, which is why the program stays small enough to use without a manual.

Nobody can promise that, and be suspicious of software that does. Admissibility depends on your jurisdiction, the case and the judge. What ChatExport can do is remove the usual objections: the messages come from Apple’s own backup file rather than a photographed screen, the timestamps come from the record, the thread is complete rather than selected, and the file carries a SHA256 fingerprint. A WhatsApp chat is a step further from the phone, because there the source is a file WhatsApp exported rather than a database, so the document names that file and prints its SHA256 too. Ask your lawyer what your court actually requires.

They can read it, search it and print it, which is usually what they ask for: the whole thread as a PDF with dates and times, rather than screenshots. If an investigator needs a forensic image of the device itself, that is a different job and needs a forensic examiner.

A second PDF style. Monochrome, formal header, plain transcript, no coloured bubbles, and every verifiable detail switched on: full timestamps with the time zone, sender numbers, delivery and read receipts, message numbering. It is meant to look like a document rather than a marketing screenshot. The title page lists every participant with their number or address in both styles, so that detail does not depend on the one you choose.

It is a fingerprint of the exported file. Write it down when you file the document, and anyone can recalculate it later from the same file: if a single character had been altered, the fingerprint would not match. It proves the file has not changed since export. It cannot prove what happened on the phone.

They can claim anything, and a bare PDF is easy to argue with. That is why the export is worth more when you keep the backup folder it came from: the backup is Apple’s own file, anyone can export the conversation from it again, and the messages will read the same. (The new file will not have the same SHA256, because every export stamps its own date. The hash proves one file has not been altered since it was made, not that two exports are identical.) Keep the backup, record the hash, and export the whole thread rather than the convenient parts.

The whole thing, in almost every case. A range that starts the day before the message you like and ends the day after invites the question of what is missing. If the thread is enormous, use a date range that clearly contains the whole dispute and say so.

Yes. There is an option that widens the outer margin specifically to leave room for handwritten comments, which is what a lot of people do on the way to a hearing.

No. The app has no server, no account and no telemetry. You can disconnect from the internet, export a conversation, and nothing about the process changes. That is the simplest way to verify the claim yourself. This website is separate: it counts visits with Umami, with Ahrefs and with a counter of our own, none of which stores anything on your device, which is why there is no cookie banner here. All three are described on the privacy page.

Yes. If "Encrypt local backup" is ticked in Apple’s software, ChatExport asks for that password and then reads the backup normally. It decrypts only the files it actually needs, on your own PC, and wipes them when you close the app. The password is used and forgotten: never written to disk, never sent anywhere. Type it wrong and it simply asks again.

No. There is no activation call, no update ping and no usage reporting. A machine that has never been online behaves identically to one that has.

Whatever is in the backup folder and whatever you exported, exactly as with any other file on that account. ChatExport does not hide anything and does not pretend to be a vault. If that matters, export to an encrypted drive and delete the backup afterwards, which the app can do for you.

A normal conversation is done in seconds. Very large threads with thousands of photos take longer. The app renders in batches and shows the percentage and current step the whole way, and you can cancel at any point.

A hundred thousand in a single conversation, tested rather than estimated. Memory stays flat because the document is built in batches, so the window does not freeze and the PC does not run out of RAM halfway through.

Yes. It is real text, not pictures of text, so Ctrl+F works in any reader. Every PDF also gets a table of contents, page numbers and bookmarks so you can jump straight to a month. You can also search inside a conversation in the app before you export it.

Wherever you choose, and the app remembers it for next time. When the export finishes it shows the full path, with buttons to open the file or the folder it is in.

What you can download today is a free trial. It exports every format and reads encrypted backups, but each document carries a watermark on every page and stops at the 50 most recent messages in a conversation. A one-time licence costs 34.99 USD and lifts both limits. The payment window opens on this site and charges in your own currency, and there will never be a subscription.

Then you get your money back. Thirty days, no form and no questions: write to support@getchatexport.com. Whatever you already exported stays on your machine and is yours to keep.

Email support@getchatexport.com. The app keeps local log files you can attach. They describe what the app did, not what your messages say.