What iPhone message export software costs, and what the cheap end is selling
iPhone message export software costs between 19.99 and 70 USD once, and TextPort’s desktop apps cost nothing. Bought as a subscription instead, the same three years run from 89.97 to 179.97 USD at the yearly tiers, and past 700 USD if you keep paying by the week. The two ends of that range are not the same product: the cheapest paid tier of all is not a desktop program, it is an iPhone app that builds the export on its vendor’s servers.
Every figure below carries the date it was read from the vendor’s own page, and the reason for that is under “Why is every price on this page dated?” near the end. A price with no date beside it is a price you cannot check.
What does each program cost?
| Program | Price | Model | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|
| CopyTrans Contacts | 19.99 USD | one time | 4 Aug 2026 |
| Decipher TextMessage | 29.99 USD | one time | 4 Aug 2026 |
| iExplorer | 39.99 USD | one time | 4 Aug 2026 |
| AnyTrans | 39.99 USD a year, or 59.99 lifetime | either | 4 Aug 2026 |
| MobileTrans | 39.99 USD a year, or 39.99 lifetime | either | 4 Aug 2026 |
| TouchCopy | 70 USD for two PCs, or 40 USD for a 12 month and 30 for a 6 month licence for one, amounts from the vendor’s checkout | one time or term | 15 Oct 2026 |
| iMazing | 29.99 USD a year for one device, 49.99 for five, and see the note below | subscription only | 15 Oct 2026 |
| TextPort | desktop apps free; on iPhone the first three conversations free (15 Oct 2026), then 4.99 to 9.99 USD a week, 14.99 a month, 59.99 a year (4 Oct 2026) | free on a computer, subscription in the iPhone app | 15 Oct 2026 |
| TextKeep | 8.99 USD a week, 19.99 a month, or 59.99 a year | subscription, in the app | 4 Oct 2026 |
| PhoneView | not published any more | one time | 4 Aug 2026 |
| ChatExport | free trial, then one licence you keep, figure on the pricing page | one time | 17 Sep 2026 |
PhoneView has no price because its store address now answers with a redirect to the maker’s support site: what happened to it, and what a Mac owner does now, is in a PhoneView alternative for Windows. TextPort has four weekly prices rather than one, several of them listed more than once in the App Store, which is a pricing pattern rather than a typo.
Which model costs more over three years?
The subscription, in every pairing: 89.97 to 179.97 USD at the yearly tiers against 19.99 to 70 USD paid once. Three years is the honest horizon for this kind of program, because the reason to buy one is usually a case, a dispute or an archive, and those are rarely finished in a month.
| Program | Three years | How that number is reached |
|---|---|---|
| CopyTrans Contacts | 19.99 USD | the price, once |
| Decipher TextMessage | 29.99 USD | the price, once |
| iExplorer | 39.99 USD | the price, once |
| MobileTrans, lifetime | 39.99 USD | the price, once |
| AnyTrans, lifetime | 59.99 USD | the price, once |
| TouchCopy | 70 USD | the price, once, for two PCs |
| iMazing, one device | 89.97 USD | 29.99 times three |
| AnyTrans, yearly | 119.97 USD | 39.99 times three |
| MobileTrans, yearly | 119.97 USD | 39.99 times three |
| iMazing, five devices | 149.97 USD | 49.99 times three |
| TextPort, yearly tier | 179.97 USD | 59.99 times three |
| TextKeep, yearly tier | 179.97 USD | 59.99 times three |
| TextPort, weekly tier | 778.44 USD | 4.99 times 52, times three |
Every figure in the middle column is arithmetic on a published tier, not a measurement of what anyone paid. Nobody keeps a weekly subscription for three years on purpose, and that is why the row is printed: the weekly tier is the one you buy for a single conversation this evening, and the one that keeps charging until somebody cancels it. The yearly rows assume the price holds, and iMazing’s did not: its device licence ended in June 2025, which is the whole subject of an iMazing alternative for Windows.
What is the cheapest tier actually selling?
A trip through somebody else’s servers, in the two rows that are phone apps rather than desktop programs. TextPort’s weekly tier at 4.99 USD is the lowest paid price on this page, and the vendor says its iPhone app takes the conversation out of iMessage and builds the export with “secure cloud processing”. TextKeep is not in that bracket on price, at 19.99 USD a month, and it works from screenshots read on the vendor’s servers.
One edge of this carries its own date. Read on 15 October 2026, TextPort’s desktop apps are free and need no account. The Windows one reads an iPhone backup on the PC, where “your messages never leave your computer”, but “TextPort reads unencrypted backups” and walks you through turning encryption off; the Mac one exports the Messages on the Mac. So the servers above belong to the iPhone app rather than to the product as a whole.
That is a different product from the rest of this table. A program that reads the message database takes what the phone stored, including the timestamp on every message. A program that reads screenshots takes what the screen showed, which is what the interface chose to display at the size you were scrolling. The full argument, with what each route keeps and loses, is in a TextPort alternative.
Why is iMazing a subscription and the rest are not?
Because iMazing changed, and the rest did not. Until June 2025 it sold a licence for a device that you kept; since then the same product is 29.99 USD a year for one device or 49.99 for five, and the older licence is not on sale. Every other program in the table above that reads a backup or a cable, and is still on sale, sells a one time licence, except TextPort, whose desktop apps are free, and two of them, AnyTrans and MobileTrans, sell both and let you choose. TouchCopy’s 6 and 12 month licences look like the exception and are not one: its own purchase page, checked 4 August 2026, says there are no subscriptions and no auto renewals, so the term ends instead of billing you again. The amounts, 40 USD for 12 months and 30 for 6, come from the catalogue the vendor’s checkout loads, read 15 October 2026, rather than from the page’s own wording.
A message export is an archive: you make it once and you may need to remake it in two years, when the case moves or somebody asks for a different date range. A subscription that has lapsed by then means paying again to open your own backup.
What does a price never tell you?
Four things, and not one of them is visible in the price column.
- Where the messages come from. A backup read, a cable read, or a screen read. Three different kinds of evidence at three similar prices.
- Whether it opens an encrypted backup. AnyTrans and TextPort’s Windows app do not, and both tell you to turn the encryption off, which changes what your backup is.
- How many devices or PCs the licence covers. TouchCopy’s 70 USD is for two PCs; iMazing’s 49.99 a year is for five devices, and 29.99 buys one.
- What the free tier lets you see before paying. All checked 4 August 2026: TouchCopy shows five or six messages from a conversation, iMazing 25, AnyTrans 30 items per data type for three days, and CopyTrans Contacts “50 actions”, which are not 50 messages. Decipher says “a few messages from each contact” and publishes no number. TextPort’s iPhone app, read 15 October 2026, lets you “import your first three conversations for free”.
Which of those four decides your purchase depends on what you are exporting and why, and that is the decision the table cannot make for you. It is laid out program by program in the best iPhone message export software, eleven programs compared.
Frequently asked questions
How much does iMazing cost?
29.99 USD a year for one device, 49.99 for five, 89.99 for the family tier, and from 89 USD a year for business, read from the vendor’s store on 15 October 2026. A yearly subscription is the only model on sale: the device licence you used to be able to buy once ended in June 2025, so a lifetime iMazing licence is not something you can purchase today, whatever an older review says.
Is iMazing free?
No, and the free download is a trial rather than a free version. It shows 25 messages, and 25 from WhatsApp, which is enough to confirm the program sees your conversation and not enough to export it.
How much does TouchCopy cost?
70 USD for a licence covering two PCs, with 12 and 6 month licences for a single PC sold alongside it at 40 and 30 USD. Those amounts come from the catalogue the vendor’s checkout loads, read 15 October 2026, because the purchase page’s own wording names no figure. The 70 USD is the most expensive one time price in the table, and one of the few that names how many computers the licence covers.
How much does Decipher TextMessage cost?
29.99 USD, once, checked 4 August 2026, for Windows and macOS. It is the price the rest of this category is measured against, and the comparison against what can actually be verified is in a Decipher TextMessage alternative.
How much does TextPort cost?
There is no single answer, and that is the finding. On a computer it costs nothing: read on 15 October 2026, the desktop apps are free and need no account. On iPhone, “you can import your first three conversations for free”, and after that it is a subscription. Its App Store listing, read on 11 September 2026, carries weekly purchases at 4.99, 6.99, 7.99 and 8.99 USD, a monthly at 14.99, and yearly at 49.99 and 59.99, with several of those appearing more than once.
How much does iExplorer cost?
39.99 USD, once, checked 4 August 2026. On 23 August 2026 its store page also mentioned business and organisation packages without publishing a figure for any of them, so the only price you can plan with is the single licence.
Why is every price on this page dated?
Because the most expensive mistake in this category is a price copied from a review written before the vendor changed it. iMazing is the proof: pages written before June 2025 can still say a lifetime licence is available, and somebody budgeting from one of those is wrong by the whole difference between buying once and renewing. Everything here was read on the date beside it and nowhere else.
What does ChatExport cost?
It is bought once, and the licence stays yours. The trial exports 50 messages with a watermark and has no time limit, so you can check that your conversation opens before paying anything. The current figure, in your own currency, is on the pricing page.